ABERDEEN – U.S. District Judge Glen Davidson wasn’t even a teenager when he decided he wanted to be a lawyer.
The Pontotoc County native’s storied legal career recently notched 40 years on the federal bench. Davidson’s four decades as a district judge spans seven U.S presidents and three chief justices, but the 84-year-old is not ready to step down and take up fishing.
“After all these years on the bench, anything else would be boring,” Davidson said. “I can’t imagine sitting on a bank fishing. I am still working because I enjoy it. I enjoy the court.”
Growing up in Pontotoc County, Davidson’s father was a high school principal and later the county school superintendent. But he knew he wanted to be a lawyer from a young age,
“All my life, I have wanted to be a lawyer. I knew it when I was 12 years old,” Davidson said. “My father was the school superintendent, and his office was in the courthouse. Where other kids watched baseball games, I watched trials.”
After graduating from Ecru High School, Davidson attended the University of Mississippi and earned both his undergraduate and law degrees in just five-and-a-half years. He then joined the U.S. Air Force and was assigned to the Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG) for 3 years, handling trials and courts-martial. In that position, he was assigned cases and never knew if he would be defending a soldier or prosecuting him.
That experience prepared him for his return to Northeast Mississippi. When he returned home, he set up a private practice in Tupelo and partnered with attorney Gary Carnathan for about a decade. Along the way, he became the first assistant district attorney in the First Circuit District, working under District Attorney Neal Biggers.
But that job was just part time. He still had his private practice as well.
“We were great partners. I’m more of a wheeler-dealer, go here, go there about half prepared,” said Carnation. “Davidson was more studious. He would always study the law and make sure he was prepared beforehand.
“He was an excellent tryer of cases. He liked to prosecute, that was his forte, and he did an excellent job as U.S. attorney.”
U.S. District Court Judge Sharion Aycock said she has heard stories that Davidson “was a bulldog in the courtroom as a prosecutor. Even today, he always goes into the courtroom prepared.”
His prosecutorial work drew the attention of Sen. Thad Cochran and President Ronald Reagan, who worked together to appoint Davidson as U.S. attorney in 1981. While he was only on the job for four years, a pair of most unusual cases fell during his tenure.
In the early 1980s, two Mississippi sheriffs had opened sideline “businesses” involving moonshine and selling alcohol in a dry county. The sheriff of Montgomery County was making corn whiskey in a tenant house on a farm way out on the boondocks. They would carry a vanload of the moonshine to Chicago every Friday and sell it. They also carried guns confiscated in Northeast Mississippi up north to sell. Around the same time, the Itawamba County sheriff was overseeing an operation near the Tishomingo and Franklin County Alabama lines where an old chicken shed had been converted into a combination beer barn and drive-thru liquor store.
When one of the Montgomery County pistols that still had a serial number was used in an Illinois robbery, federal authorities began investigating. The Itawamba County venture was a victim of its own success.
“Our investigation started when the sheriffs in Tishomingo County and Franklin County Alabama complained about the traffic every Saturday afternoon,” said Davidson. “It was such a well-known operation, they even sold T-shirts.”
At the time, in order to prosecute an elected official, especially a sitting sheriff, the U.S. Attorneys’ Office had to get prior approval from Washington, D.C. So Davidson headed to the national capital to plead his case to Assistant Attorney General Rudy Giuliani (yes, that Rudy Giuliani).
“It was easy to explain the corn whiskey,” Davidson said. “I got approval for that case quickly.”
The other case was more difficult. Even though Mississippi was a dry state and Itawamba County was dry, the legislature passed a law that required the state to collect taxes on black market liquor. Giuliani had a hard time comprehending the legality of charging a tax on an illegal activity.
“Finally, he just threw up his arms and said if the other sheriffs are complaining, do your job,” Davidson said.
While the prosecution was straightforward, the Montgomery County trial had a touch of the supernatural and the surreal. The sheriff pleaded guilty but his deputy refused, even though prosecutors only were recommending six months and later offered a suspended sentence.
“It turned out, he had been seeing a voodoo woman from Noxapater, and she told him not to plead,” Davidson said. “When the trial started, his supporters started scattering seeds all around the third floor of the federal courthouse.”
When District Judge Willam Keady was informed of the activity, he brushed it off as harmless … at first. But one day during the noon break of the trial, supporters got into the judge’s office and scattered seeds in his chambers and left a Prince Albert tobacco can about half full of seeds in his desk.
Judge Keady promptly banned the supporters from the courtroom and the courthouse. The jury convicted the deputy, who was sentenced to six months.
“I still have that Prince Albert can and the seeds,” Davidson said with a smile.
In 1985, a third district judge position was created to handle the increased caseload. Cochran and Reagan again backed Davidson for the post. While he enjoyed prosecuting cases, he quickly settled into his new job on the bench where he could draw on his entire legal career to render decisions.
“Judge Davidson has had an absolutely remarkable career, with time in private practice as well as a lengthy career as a public servant, from his prosecutorial experience as an assistant district attorney, district attorney and United States attorney to his 40 years on the federal bench,” said current United States Attorney Clay Joyner. “There is a great deal of value in the wide range of experience that he brings to the table, and the Northern District is fortunate to have in him a keeper of the institutional memory and core values of our judiciary.”
Joyner added that Davidson “still runs a pretty tight ship of a courtroom at trial.”
Over the last 40 years, things have changed dramatically. When he started, there were no computers in the building. Now, everything is filed and retrieved electronically.
And the makeup of cases have changed as well. Over the years, he watched the number of drug cases steadily increase, first crack cocaine, followed by crystal methamphetamine and now fentanyl.
“When I was U.S. attorney (1981-1985), there was not a single crack or meth case. And there were only two involving powder cocaine,” Davidson said. “So many of the cases now are drug related, at least 50%, or more.”
The criminal cases, especially ones involving children, can be a drain emotionally. That’s why he prefers civil cases.
“My favorite cases are the patent and corporate cases, ones dealing with intellectual property,” he said.
His longest trial, which involved a Delta catfish farmer defaulting on a loan, lasted eight weeks. After five weeks of testimony, he ordered a recess to give the jury a break. When they resumed, the trial went on for three more weeks. Long trials are more of an exception today as most cases are resolved before they reach trial. Davidson estimated that 90% of criminal cases plead and 85% of civil cases settle.
In 2007, after 22 years as an active judge, Davidson took senior status. While designed to lighten the workload, he continued to take as many cases as he could handle and he also took his replacement as district judge under his wing.
“He is always available. I called on him day and night in my early days, even things as simple as trial procedure or fundamentals, to make sure I was doing it the correct way,” said Aycock. “He was so helpful. He paved the way for me. He would tell me, ‘I’m not telling you how to do it. I’m telling you the history and how things were handled in the past.’”
She said she leaned on him heavily during her seven years as chief judge, and his “memory and exceptional recall” of the district’s history come in handy on a regular basis.
“There is not much he hasn’t seen. If something I haven’t seen comes up, I can go to him, and he’ll recall something just like it happened decades ago and here’s how we handled it,” Aycock said. “It’s calming to have someone like that to go to.”
But Davidson is quick to point out that even an old dog can learn new tricks.
“Even though I have been on the bench as long as I have, you’d be surprised how many times something comes up for the first time,” he said.
One of those happened last month when a man asked to serve his sentence far away from Mississippi and the bad influences in his life in hopes of starting afresh.
“That was the first time I had ever seen that. Normally they want to be as close to home as possible so family can visit,” Davidson said.
In the past 40 years, he has sentenced thousands of people to serve time in prison, not everyone held it against him. Each winter, he gets Christmas cards from prisoners and former prisoners. They are thankful for his fairness and for giving them a chance to start over and rebuild their lives.
“One of the best facilities in the country is (a federal facility) in Butner, North Carolina,” he said.
Davidson plans on staying busy. On the days when he is not in court in Aberdeen or Oxford, or in his chambers in Aberdeen, he goes to his office in Tupelo to take care of paperwork, preparing decisions or studying for upcoming trials.
The U.S. District Court of North Mississippi has three slots for active judges. At the moment, two of those slots are open. It is not known if there are any recommendations waiting for confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Until they are filled, the district’s three senior status judges — Davidson, Aycock and Michael Mills Sr. — will continue to handle full loads along with active Judge Debra Brown.