Judge Strong retires

Fifth District Judge Glen Strong retires after 24 years on the bench stating that being a judge has been the greatest adventure of his life.

Looking back at his years on the Fifth District bench which includes West Carroll, Richland and Franklin Parishes, Judge Strong names his experience with drug court as most rewarding.

“The most rewarding thing I have ever done is to see somebody turn their life around. Also the most frustrating is to work with them two years and then see them fail,” he says of that experience.

In that part of his career, the judge has seen 215 people admitted to drug court with 111 finishing. “To my knowledge, 93 are still clean and sober,” he reports. He said the court average nine graduates a year.

During his 24 years of service, Judge Strong said he has presided over all kind of cases ranging from rail crashes, car crashes, airplane crashes to a $90 million civil suit involving General Motors and a New York socialite who travels around the country and buys up land to turn it into a wildlife habitat.

He said in a case in West Carroll in which a man from Monroe was killed in an airplane crash, the jury came back with a $4 million judgment against the manufacturer of airplane’s engine. “I tried the longest criminal jury trial in the district. It was a murder trial that lasted four weeks.” He said he had also tried the longest civil trial against Chilean Nitrate Co which involved the alleged violation of trademark laws.

During trials involving airplane crashes, the judge commented that he had investigators in his courtroom who had investigated crashes around the world including the bombing of a passenger jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, and a crash in the Everglades. He said they compliments his handling of the cases, stating that they had testified in cases all over the world but that they had never been in a more efficiently run court than his. “I think that is the best compliment I have had.”

The judge’s path to law school started on a row in the cotton fields where he spent a lot of time during his childhood and youth. During those years, more of the work that is accomplished by machinery and chemicals today was done by hand.

“It’s strange how life works out,” he comments. “I was ninth out of 11 children and started chopping cotton at five years old. I started first grade that year.” He said that over the years, “I would pray to God to help me find a way out of this cotton patch.”

Growing up near Goodwill, he attended Goodwill school and graduated Forest High School.

From there he attended ULM, then Northeast Louisiana State College, prior to his admission in LSU Law School. He worked at jobs including pipelining and service station to help pay his way.

Life in the legal profession did not start out with an elected judgeship. Judge Strong said that when he started law school his intention was to get into corporate law.

However, while attending law school he worked with an attorney. He said an elderly black man was accused of murder in Port Allen. The man was not guilty, he states, and said it felt good working on the case which resulted in a not guilty verdict.

He started his own law career in Monroe with a position in the law firm of Johnny Carl Parkerson. He said that in a matter of months, he was an associate in Parkerson & Strong where he gained a lot of experience.

Circumstances brought about a move back to West Carroll where he purchased the law office of the late attorney Bob Hodges. He said he bought the building and the late Sartis Bassett who was practicing law then, purchased the law library in the building. They both had offices in the building for a few years.

The young attorney became a public defender and worked on one case in which an elderly man was accused of murder. He said in 1976 he was appointed to defend the man and that it was on a Saturday night at 9:00 when the jury returned a not guilty verdict. He said the only fees he collected from that case came in the form of a frozen turkey the man brought him on a holiday.

The judge spent some time as assistant district attorney before running for the position of judge in the Fifth Judicial District in 1984. He won with 78 percent of the vote in the district and far higher than that in West Carroll and has been unopposed since.

He started his term almost immediately following the Fall election since Judge B.I. Berry whose seat he was to fill on the bench, decided to retire early rather than wait until the first of the new year.

As for future plans the retiring judge said he would like to do some fill-in work. Retired judges can be appointed to handle cases in courts around the state. He said he would also like to handle some mediation.

“I have tried to serve with honesty, integrity and dignity,” he states. He said he has enjoyed serving the people of the Fifth District.

Judge Strong is married to the former Betty Sullivan of Oak Grove and the couple has three children.