Editor’s note: This is the final installment in a two-part series about Judge James Horton Jr. who presided over the second Scottsboro Boys trial. At the end of Saturday’s installment, purported rape victim Ruby Bates changed her story between the first and second trial and had spoken at rallies in support of the “Scottsboro Boys.” Despite that, a jury convicted Haywood Patterson and sentenced him to die in the electric chair. The defendant filed a motion for a new trial.

In June 1933, Judge Horton mounted the bench in the Limestone County courtroom and announced that he was setting the death verdict aside and granting a new trial to Haywood Patterson.

When advised that granting a new trial would put his re-election in 1934 in doubt, he replied: “What does that have to do with this case?”

The Baltimore Sun commended his actions. “In performing his difficult role with such imminent fairness Judge Horton had made a distinguished contribution to his state and the nation.” He had stood firm for justice.

When Judge Horton ran for re-election in 1934 he was defeated by Aquilla Griffin of Cullman County. His judicial career ended.

Horton died March, 1973, at age 95. I tell people that he was the only judge that ever took a personal interest in me — he asked where I was going.

Several years ago, a California college student wrote an essay about Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys. A copy found its way to Mama, who passed it on to me. The writer stated that Judge Horton was defeated in his re-election bid after granting a new trial to Haywood Patterson and that he was so embittered he dismantled the family home and moved it to Greenbrier. In other words, he wanted to get the heck out of Athens.

The house, (Maclin-Hobbs-Horton, 1849 see “Lure and Lore of Limestone County” by Edwards and Axford), inherited by his wife, stood where the City Hall is currently located. Union Gen. James A. Garfield (later U.S. president) made himself at home there while presiding over the court-martial of Col. Turchin after his men sacked Athens. During the Battle of Athens, Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest dined there.

I was curious to know the truth. At the time Judge Horton’s son, Don, operated a farm machinery business at Greenbrier. I knew him well and stopped late one afternoon and told him about the essay. Don laughed. “I’ll tell you the real story.” He said his dad did lose the election, but carried Limestone County. He carried every box in the county except three and garnered 60 percent of the vote. It was during this time that TVA purchased the Horton farm on Elk River.

“Daddy always wanted a cattle farm,” said Don.

He took his money and purchased the 1,400-acre Pulley farm at Greenbrier from First National Bank. It was in the middle of the Great Depression and Pulley had lost it by foreclosure. It was there that Horton and his sons would build the oldest Black Angus herd in Alabama.

Don laughed at the idea that his father was embittered. The house was disassembled and moved to Greenbrier, but it had nothing to do with losing the election. Horton told me the name of the fellow who moved the house, even the model of the Studebaker truck he drove.

“Every board was numbered and hauled to Greenbrier and re-erected,” he said.

The lot where the house stood was gifted to the people of Athens to build a new city hall.

Connection to Horton case

Advance forward again to Jan. 21, 1980. That was the date 27-year-old Geneva Clemmons of West Washington Street was gunned down in her front yard and her 16-day-old baby was kidnapped. Best-selling author Ann Rule tells the story in “Lying in Wait.”

Harold and his wife, Jackie Schutt, were arrested in Washington state, and extradition proceedings were initiated to return them to Limestone County to stand trial. I was hired by the family to represent Jackie Schutt.

I had no idea who Harold Schutt was and in an attempt to throw a wrench in the legal machinery to slow the process of extradition, I wrote a brief alleging that Jackie Schutt might not get a fair trial in Alabama. After all, look what happened to the Scottsboro Boys.

Back in the early 1980s people outside the South still had the mistaken idea that we all belonged to the KKK and ate cornbread three times a day.

It was a wild shot on my part, and of course, the Washington judge didn’t buy it. However, I received a hand-written letter from Ruby Schutt, mother of Harold, castigating me for dragging her name through the legal mud hole.

Who was Ruby Schutt? The infamous Ruby Bates.

Harold and Jackie Schutt were convicted.

An example of courage

I’ve tried hundreds of cases in the courtroom where Judge Horton granted Haywood Patterson a new trial. There were times when I felt alone, scared and unsure of myself. To bolster my courage, I often read Judge Horton’s words engraved in a bronze plaque on the courtroom wall: “So far as the law is concerned it knows neither native nor alien, Jew nor Gentile, black nor white. This case is no different from any other. We have only our duty to do without fear or favor.”

Judge Horton is one of my heroes because, like fictional Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” he stood for what was right and just. He was the real deal.

A community project aimed at raising $75,000 to honor Judge Horton with a bronze statue on the courthouse lawn is underway. To make a tax deductible donation, send a check to LACF-Horton Fund, P.O. Box 578, Athens, Alabama 36512. (see www.hortonmonument.com).

The statue will be a place where you can take your children and grandchildren and say to them: “I want to tell you a story of a great man, a man who stood for what is right and just.”