John L. Carroll
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October 19, 1943
John L. Carroll | |
|---|---|
 Carroll in 2006 | |
| Magistrate Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama | |
| In office 1986–2001 | |
| Preceded by | Joel Fredrick Dubina |
| Succeeded by | Delores R. Boyd |
| Personal details | |
| Born | John Lawrence Carroll October 19, 1943 Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Died | August 14, 2023 (aged 79) Birmingham, Alabama, U.S. |
| Spouse |
Susan Gaskins (m. 1970) |
| Children | 1 |
| Education | |
| Military service | |
| Branch/service | United States Marine Corps |
| Years of service | 1965–1969 |
| Rank |  Captain |
| Battles/wars | Vietnam War |
John Lawrence Carroll (October 19, 1943 – August 14, 2023) was an American judge and academic administrator who was a U.S. magistrate judge for the Middle District of Alabama from 1986 to 2001. He was also a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States's Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. He served as the dean of the Cumberland School of Law in Homewood, Alabama, from 2001 to 2014.
John Lawrence Carroll[1] was a native of Washington, D.C., born there on October 19, 1943,[2] into a Catholic family of Irish descent.[3] He graduated from Gonzaga College High School, a Jesuit academy in the District of Columbia, in 1961.[3] He went on to attend Tufts University, attaining a bachelor's degree in economics in 1965.[3] Afterwards, Carroll entered the military and served as a Marine flight officer during the Vietnam War, where he flew over 200 combat missions, more than 100 of which were in North Vietnam.[3] He received an honorable discharge from the Marine Corps in 1969 at the rank of captain.[3]
Law career
After leaving the Marine Corps, Carroll briefly worked as a furniture salesman, during which he went across the country and found a calling for law after visiting housing projects in Chicago.[3] He graduated from the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University, a Baptist college, in 1974,[4] magna cum laude, having served as member of the Cumberland Law Review, on national moot court team and as student bar president.[3][5]
Upon completing law school, Carroll entered the Master of Laws program at Harvard Law School, where he studied constitutional law.[6] He also applied for a staff position at the Southern Poverty Law Center, and worked his first case with the SPLC representing an African-American former Marine sergeant accused of a double murder; he and his co-workers were nearly "run off the road" by local residents who were angry that the defendant did not receive the death penalty.[3] Carroll mainly worked with the SPLC on civil rights class-action lawsuits,[5] as well as cases like Pugh v. Locke, which challenged Alabama's treatment of imprisoned people.[3] Pugh v. Locke led to a federal takeover of Alabama's prison system, which Carroll credited with security improvements and better access to mental health care in Alabama's prisons, which were notoriously violent and over-crowded in the 1970s.[7] Carroll became legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center in 1975, serving for nine years.[8] Carroll later said of his time with the SPLC that he wanted to commit himself with "both excellence and to making a difference".[3]
When Carroll stepped down as legal director at the Southern Poverty Law Center, he entered private practice and spent two years on the law faculty at Mercer University's Walter F. George School of Law.[3][5] He was also a member of the adjunct faculty at the University of Alabama School of Law.[9] In 1986, he applied for an opening in the U.S. magistrate position at the Middle District of Alabama's court. He was ultimately selected for the position and served as a federal trial judge until 2001.[3][10] Carroll also worked with the Federal Judicial Center, where he chaired the Magistrate Judges' Education Committee, overseeing the training of other magistrate judges.[3][11] Carroll was appointed by chief justice William Rehnquist to serve on the Judicial Conference of the United States's Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which analyzes and makes recommendations to the United States Supreme Court and the United States Congress for federal rule changes.[9]