Ep. 35 Reflecting on 25 Years of Judicial Service with Justice Roger Page

Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Roger Page is a man of two careers. After 25 years of service to the Tennessee judiciary, he is hanging up his robe for a life of travel and home improvement. On this episode of Tennessee Court Talk, Justice Page sits down with host, Nick Morgan, to discuss growing up on a farm in Chester County, his love for the San Francisco Giants  and how a boy who didn’t want to be a farmer, grew up to serve as the Chief Justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court. This episode is for all audiences. 

Produced by Nick Morgan, Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts

Transcript

00;00;00;17 - 00;00;24;01
Host
We are excited to welcome justice Roger Page to the podcast. Justice Page has served on the Tennessee Supreme Court since 2016. His judicial career spans more than 25 years, serving as an Appellate Judge on the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals from 2011 to 2016. In 1998, he was elected Circuit Court Judge in the 26th Judicial District. He is a native of West Tennessee.

00;00;24;02 - 00;00;30;11
Host
Born and raised in Chester County. I'm your host, Nick Morgan. Justice Page, welcome to Tennessee Court Talk.

00;00;30;14 - 00;00;31;28
Justice Page
Thank you. Happy to be here.

00;00;32;01 - 00;00;40;10
Host
We are catching you during a time of transition in your life at the moment, as you prepare to retire from the bench, August 31st. What's on the top of your mind right now?

00;00;40;15 - 00;00;58;29
Justice Page
Well, I'm thinking about what I'll be doing the next few years in retirement, especially the next few months. My wife, Chancellor Carol McCoy, and I plan to do some traveling. We have traveled quite a bit in the last few years, but we both want to go to Australia and New Zealand and we're planning a time to do that.

00;00;59;02 - 00;01;25;02
Justice Page
We're also planning to go to Egypt. We had a trip to Egypt planned last year, but it didn't work out because of some turmoil in the middle East. But I'm not going to just lie around and do nothing. I've got a couple of projects going back home. I'm renovating my mother's house. She passed away this past November and also I'm building a barn to minimum on the farm I grew up on, and it just really got started about two weeks ago.

00;01;25;03 - 00;01;30;06
Justice Page
They're supposed to be doing the framing this week, so it's always interesting to watch a house being erected.

00;01;30;09 - 00;01;44;03
Host
So certainly staying busy. You have one of the more unusual paths into the judiciary. Before your legal career, you worked as a chief pharmacist and assistant store manager for Walgreens. What caused you to make such a dramatic change in your career?

00;01;44;07 - 00;02;08;02
Justice Page
Well, I guess we can say it's interesting. I grew up in a farm family. My mother was one of eight. My dad was one of seven, and all my aunts and uncles, for the most part, were farmers. No one had gone to college until my generation. There are 18 grandchildren on my mom's side and 33 on my dad's side.

00;02;08;04 - 00;02;35;00
Justice Page
So we were the first generation to go to college. We have dentists and nurse practitioners and lawyers and several educators and I'm not sure there are any farmers in the next generation. I think we all had to pick cotton and hoe cotton and and work in the truck patches and haul hay and the only thing when I was getting out of high school and going up to the University of Tennessee at Martin, the only thing I really knew was that I did not want to be a farmer.

00;02;35;03 - 00;02;58;15
Justice Page
So one of my friends was going into pre pharmacy there, and at that time it was only a five year program, two years undergraduate and then three years in pharmacy school at the University of Tennessee in Memphis. And I was lucky enough to get accepted to farm school after two years. And during my fourth quarter there it was nine quarters straight through.

00;02;58;18 - 00;03;19;03
Justice Page
I started in the fall of 75, and then I had a pharmacy law class. It was fascinating. I was taught by a pharmacist lawyer named Bruce White. And after sitting through 2 or 3 of his classes, I knew that's what I wanted to do. So I went to the dean of the pharmacy school and told him I was going to drop out and go to law school, and he said, don't do that.

00;03;19;03 - 00;03;27;24
Justice Page
You're half finished with this study. You can use that and you go to law school, because I actually used my B.S. in pharmacy as my undergrad degree to get into law school.

00;03;27;26 - 00;03;29;00
Host
Interesting.

00;03;29;02 - 00;03;55;15
Justice Page
Both professions are wonderful professions. I enjoyed my time. I actually started to work at Walgreens in 77 as a student, and then went to law school in 81. At that time, the University of Memphis had a night program, and I was going to start into the night program when I realized that pharmacists with the small drugstores and even at Walgreens didn't want someone to come in and work days and go to school at night.

00;03;55;16 - 00;04;14;28
Justice Page
They wanted you to go to school in the daytime and then come fill prescriptions at night. So that's what I did. And I worked a lot as a pharmacist during law school. I had to I had never clerked. Never worked any in any legal setting at all until Judge Julia Gibbons hired me as one of her law clerks in 1984.

00;04;15;01 - 00;04;23;11
Host
How did your upbringing on a farm in Mifflin influence you as a judge? Primarily as a trial judge, where you heard civil and criminal cases from your own community?

00;04;23;12 - 00;04;40;29
Justice Page
Well, of course, I knew, especially in Chester and Henderson County, I had three counties Chester, Henderson, and Madison. Madison County is where I lived all at that time. Chester County is where I grew up and went to high school, and then most of my cousins, aunts and uncles lived in Henderson County. So I knew a lot of the litigants.

00;04;40;29 - 00;05;15;14
Justice Page
Not enough to recuse myself in most cases, because if you did that, you wouldn't try anything in the small counties. In answering your question, I was taught respect for everyone, treat everyone fairly and be honest with everyone to be kind. And I tried to do that during my time as a judge. I mean, cases were always easy. Your decisions were not always easy to make, but once you made one, I tried to explain why I was doing what I was doing and, you know, years later, I had people who had gone to prison for eight, ten, 12 years come back and tell me, you know, you did the right thing.

00;05;15;14 - 00;05;18;01
Justice Page
I've learned my lesson. I'm leading a proper life now, and.

00;05;18;01 - 00;05;19;21
Host
That's that's really what it's all about, right?

00;05;19;22 - 00;05;20;10
Justice Page
That's correct.

00;05;20;11 - 00;05;24;11
Host
After 25 years on the bench, is there a particular case that has stayed with you?

00;05;24;12 - 00;05;49;19
Justice Page
Well, I tried both civil and criminal cases. All cases are very important to the little kids involved in that case. I will say that most of the cases that I tried with publicity were, of course, criminal cases. Tried a lot of murder cases. I presided over capital cases. The ones that were hardest for me emotionally were the cases involving child victims.

00;05;49;21 - 00;06;13;21
Justice Page
But as I said, all cases are very important. But there is one that stands out simply because it was so tragic. We had a, locksmith murdered here in Jackson, I think it was 2009, and he was a former marine, had no ties to West Tennessee, and he and his wife had just driven through here and thought that West Madison County was pretty country.

00;06;13;21 - 00;06;34;15
Justice Page
And they bought a farm out there. He had, I want to say, seven children. And he was just minding his own business one morning, fixing a car for a young lady whose car broke down when she was going to school and just, hey, there was a 15 year old boy who shot and killed him, and there was another man involved in it.

00;06;34;15 - 00;06;50;11
Justice Page
He was 24. That one really affected me, having to sit there and watch the victim's family suffer. And I also remember, the young defendant's mother was. She suffered a lot, too, because she had tried to do what was right with him. And he had chosen to commit a crime like.

00;06;50;17 - 00;06;53;15
Host
What is challenged you the most on the bench during your time?

00;06;53;20 - 00;07;13;27
Justice Page
It gets easier as you go along. But I think work, work life balance, you have to learn to put it aside. I mean, every time I had a case, I took it to heart, tried to do the best I could with it. Yeah, I knew that I wouldn't always be right, but I could always show up on time and work hard and be prepared and do what I thought was right under the law.

00;07;13;27 - 00;07;32;19
Justice Page
On each case. It was hard for me, coming from a little candy like Chester all over having cases in there. People I'd known growing up, mainly the parents of my high school friends, might come in the courtroom and sit and watch. You know, I always wondered, how do they think by coming in here, they're going to influence me one way or the other.

00;07;32;20 - 00;07;53;21
Justice Page
I have a brother who's eight years older, and my dad had made a basketball court. Had in the past hoops, 84ft long, ten feet high, and he was maybe 14, 15. He and all his buddies would play basketball. And I was 5 or 6, and I would come out there and lie down on the court. They had to bring chewing gum and candy to get me out of the way so they could play ball.

00;07;53;23 - 00;08;11;07
Justice Page
I had a good thing going till my mother saw what was happening out the window one day, and that ended my candy collecting days. But one of those fellows ended up being a banker in one of the surrounding counties, and I was on the bench the first year in Chester County, and I noticed him sitting in the courtroom at the end of the morning.

00;08;11;07 - 00;08;16;27
Justice Page
I asked him if he had business with the court. He said, no, sir, I heard about this. I just want to see it for myself.

00;08;16;29 - 00;08;25;23
Host
He didn't believe you'd become a judge. The candy eating kid. What would you like for people to know about the role of a judge or the judiciary in general?

00;08;25;23 - 00;08;48;07
Justice Page
Well, we are human like everyone else who has a job to do. But I will say that if all the lawyers that I've known in rural West Tennessee who had 4 or 500 of them, there only 1 or 2. If you told me I'm going to go to Joe Blow I'd say, don't do that. 99% plus lawyers are hardworking and honest.

00;08;48;10 - 00;09;12;25
Justice Page
And the same thing with judges right now. It's a hard time in our history to be a judge because you make difficult decisions, and then the next thing you know, you're on social media being criticized and people call you corrupt and things like that. And I've learned not to read those things. In fact, I've had some friends of mine send me copies of things on TikTok and I'm like, unless somebody is threatening to kill me, I don't want to see these things.

00;09;12;25 - 00;09;24;04
Host
Sure, there have been a lot of changes. You're speaking about TikTok. There have been a lot of changes to the practice of law and the court system over your career. What's the one that stands out to you the most?

00;09;24;07 - 00;09;48;11
Justice Page
Well, when I became a lawyer practicing in 1985, I be given an assignment partner. You know, here's your subject. I want the cases on this. And I would go into the library, pull out the digest and the shepherds and all those books and spend hours on that assignment and do the best I can. But I would always be thinking, did I miss something?

00;09;48;13 - 00;10;01;22
Justice Page
Now you can go to Westlaw. Alexis, plug in there. You're up important words and you know for sure you've got in every case. So it's much easier to do research now than it was 40 years ago.

00;10;01;23 - 00;10;15;23
Host
You served as chief justice from 2021 to 2023 of the Tennessee Supreme Court. You helped secure substantial funding to implement enterprise. E-Filing for the court system seems like a practical step forward, but these kinds of big changes are challenging. Can you tell us about that?

00;10;15;25 - 00;10;35;22
Justice Page
Well, it's something that we knew we needed to do. So we were able to get legislature to appropriate a large sum of money for us to go into some of the smaller counties and the clerk's offices. And, that was the biggest impediment. Some most of the smaller counties just couldn't afford to implement a system like this. And of course, we're still working on it.

00;10;35;25 - 00;10;58;05
Justice Page
But, it's like a lot of other things, just like technology overall, some people resist it, but then once they start using it, they realize how much easier it is and it and it won't be this year, next year. But at some point we're going to have a unified court system, I think when everybody can figure out what's going on in Sumter County or just like in Shelby County and Davidson County.

00;10;58;07 - 00;11;12;19
Host
You've also been a big proponent of access to justice and pro bono service, encouraging greater transparency and efficiency in the judiciary with live streaming of appellate oral arguments that.

00;11;12;21 - 00;11;42;07
Justice Page
Number one, pro bono work is very important for every attorney to take on a good amount for his or her practice. And, we don't have true justice till it's for everybody. And monetary impediments shouldn't keep people from having a better lawyer. So I will always encourage everyone to, you know, we always do the the attorneys for justice, 50 hours of a pro bono work.

00;11;42;07 - 00;12;00;27
Justice Page
That's should be the beginning point for everybody. Same thing with, you know, the first cases I tried to a jury were all appointed criminal cases. I started in Jackson in 87 before we had a statewide public defender's office in 89. So I'd be in my office and somebody would show up with his or her indictment, say, hey, you're my lawyer.

00;12;00;28 - 00;12;23;06
Justice Page
Judge Marcus just sent me over here to see you. As far as live streaming I mean, to me, that is the best innovation I've seen during my whole career. Because anybody can sit and look at the appellate court, all three of them in our state Court of Criminal Appeals, Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court and see how well prepared the lawyers are, how we're prepared.

00;12;23;06 - 00;12;25;17
Justice Page
The justices and judges are if you.

00;12;25;22 - 00;12;33;15
Host
It sounds like you're going to start a new career as a carpenter, but if you don't end up starting yet another career, what are your plans after you retire from the judiciary?

00;12;33;22 - 00;12;52;18
Justice Page
Well, I want to spend more time with my wife, more time with my grandchildren. My wife and I have four boys, and then the first two grandchildren were boys. I didn't think I would ever see a female offspring. Now we have a nine year old two year old and a seven month old granddaughter, and I have to say, I've had two over.

00;12;52;18 - 00;13;11;19
Justice Page
I'd make sure I had some girls, but there's always the people who take care of you when you're old and can't help yourself. I do have a little sister, younger sister who's 11 years younger than I am. And, my brother's eight years older. So when I was in the sixth grade, my sister was one when I was embarrassed, but my dad was always working, mother was always working.

00;13;11;19 - 00;13;25;05
Justice Page
So I took care of my sister and her last, her last birthday. I wrote her a note, and she's got somewhere because she's not throwing it away that says one of my remaining goals in life is to live long enough. You have to change. My dad.

00;13;25;07 - 00;13;27;04
Host
How do you want to be remembered as a judge?

00;13;27;04 - 00;13;33;06
Justice Page
Just that I showed up on time, worked hard, and did the very best I could to follow the law and do what was right. In each case.

00;13;33;06 - 00;13;36;03
Host
What would people be surprised to know about you?

00;13;36;05 - 00;13;55;06
Justice Page
Well, I can talk a while about this one. Growing up in rural West Tennessee in the 60s, my older brother and all his friends and everybody I knew were Cardinals fans, and I'm just a little bit and always want to be a little bit different. So the first year I was old enough to really watch baseball was the summer of 62.

00;13;55;06 - 00;14;17;25
Justice Page
I was six years old, and the Giants had Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Mary Ciao, Jim Davenport, Jim Ray Hunter, Gaylord Perry, all these great players and it's ancient history for most people would have been 62 years ago. But the Giants and Dodgers fought all season to be in first place. And at the end of the year they were tired.

00;14;17;27 - 00;14;35;11
Justice Page
So they had a three game playoff and the Giants beat the Dodgers two of three. And they went to the World Series with the Yankees. And that was also very equally contested. They went to the seventh, seventh game. And the the Yankees managed to get a run when Tony Kubek hit into a double play with the gown.

00;14;35;11 - 00;15;01;22
Justice Page
Third. So the Yankees were up one to nothing in the ninth inning. And, Mary Lou Bonnet got a base hit. Next, two guys made outs and then Willie Mays hit a double. So now you have runners from second, third, two outs and Josh Brown one to nothing. And Willie McCovey hit a screaming line drive. They would have won the game except Bobby Richardson caught it ended the game.

00;15;01;24 - 00;15;28;00
Justice Page
So that was a night. And the Giants had last won a pennant in 54. I was born in 55, so I was thinking, I'm gonna live my whole life and never see my team win a World Series. And then Buster Posey came in. The Giants won in 2010, 2012 and 2014. The only thing about being a Giants fan, because I've got the MLB networks, I can watch it, but nobody told me that my my team was 2000 miles from home, and I had to stay up to 1:00 in the morning to watch the end of the games.

00;15;28;02 - 00;15;52;19
Justice Page
But in 2015, after my son ate and finished a bar exam, we went to San Francisco to an old timers game and, some of the people got to go down, you know, under in the locker room and all that kind of stuff. But Willie Mays was supposed to be there, and he he didn't come. But we got to see McCovey and Marshall and and I think Gaylord Perry was there, but I never one of my regrets in life, you know, Willie Mays died last week.

00;15;52;21 - 00;16;09;20
Justice Page
I never got to meet him, have a picture made with him at. Oh, first time I snapped. They put his statue outside the new stadium, which is not new anymore. I think it's opened in 2000, but one of the few times I've cried when I went up to see stood beside Willie Mays statue and got a picture made.

00;16;09;27 - 00;16;26;17
Host
For those of you listening, we are recording this in June. Before Justice Paige retires in August. And Willie Mays just passed away, last week. Do you have any other memories as a Giants fan? Or was that your first time going out to San Francisco with your son?

00;16;26;17 - 00;16;42;00
Justice Page
No, I've been there. I used to go every summer. I probably been out there ten times. But, one of my goals is to see a game in every stadium. And I've probably seen maybe 20. But my problem is, you know, like, you go and you see a game, the stadium, then they build a new one, you have to go back again.

00;16;42;02 - 00;17;02;29
Justice Page
But I've been to most major league ballparks. But you asked me about things. People will be surprised about me. I did another one of these few weeks ago, and I tell people, I'm probably the only guy in the state who can fill a prescription and ride a motorcycle. You know, argue a case or try a lawsuit and and run a chainsaw.

00;17;03;00 - 00;17;16;17
Justice Page
My dad and uncle had a little sawmill operation in summer. We were yesterday. I was outside and it was, what, 95 degrees I was thinking end of June you know, 50 years ago I would have been hoeing cotton. So I'm just so glad I don't have to do that anymore.

00;17;16;22 - 00;17;25;05
Host
Justice Page It's it's been a pleasure I’ve known you for several years now. Thank you for your time on Tennessee Court Talk and your service to our state. We wish you the best from retirement.