Push But Not Shove

It was his first judicial conference, and new Chief Justice Howell T. Heflin was sharply taken aback. "Let's get around the Supreme Court on this one if we can," a senior justice had just announced. That was five years ago. Alabama's high court, like those of other Southern states, was still trying to thwart the Supreme Court of the United States--even after a decade and a half of reversals by federal judges. But shortly after the new chiefs swearing-in a secretary at the marmoreal Montgomery supreme court building shrewdly guessed that "things are going to be different around here. Mr. Heflin just ordered a Dictaphone."

Briar Patch. Different and then some. Armed with a passionate belief in "business-type supervision of the business operations of courts" and a native sense of how to push without shoving, Heflin has transformed Alabama's antique judiciary into one of the most modern and efficient in the U.S. He no sooner had his Dictaphone than he began sweet-talking the legislature and the electorate into reforming the state's briar patch of conflicting court jurisdictions and ludicrous rules. It was a five-year campaign, but he won it. Next January Alabama will get a single statewide court structure with common procedural rules. A workable system for disciplining the judiciary has been added; all judges must now be lawyers, and appellate judicial salaries have vaulted from an average of $22,500 to $33,500 (still under the national average).

While lobbying through his reforms, the chief justice was also wielding his official and personal power to chop into a horrifying backlog of cases. He drafted 55 retired or underworked judges to dispose of hundreds of appeals cases that had languished for as long as five years. Result: the backlog is gone. Since 1973 the appellate docket has been "current," a rarity for state courts. By mixing public praise for jurists who cut their trial backlog with private tongue-lashings for those who did not, Heflin achieved a 16% drop in criminal trial delays in the face of a 48% jump in cases filed. Civil trials were similarly speeded.

At 6 ft. 4 in. and 260 lbs., Heflin, 55, is a strapping giant of a man, but he conspicuously avoids throwing his weight around. His background might well have produced a dyed-in-the-cot-ton supporter of the status quo instead of a reformer. Heflins have been in the state for six generations; the judge's late uncle, Cotton Tom Heflin, a populist turned black-baiting U.S. Senator (1920-31), was drummed out of the Democratic Party in 1928 for attacking Presidential Nominee Al Smith as "the Roman candidate." Young Howell went to Birmingham Southern College, served as a Marine officer in World War II and still has a stiff right thumb from machine-gun wounds suffered on Guam. After graduating from the University of Alabama Law School in 1948, he opened an office in Tuscumbia. His first month's gross income: $8 including four $1 fees.

Stepping Down. A successful trial and personal injury practice led Heflin to the presidency of the Alabama bar in 1965, and he turned that social club into a lobby for reform. In 1970, when an archsegregationist became the top candidate for chief justice, Heflin decided to take him on. "There was a feeling someone else ought to run," he recalls mildly. He won by a 2-to-l margin. And while the Heflin court has hardly become the most liberal in the country, one local civil rights lawyer says that as of now, "I'd rather take my chances with the supreme court of Alabama than with the Supreme Court of the U.S."

The chief justice's achievements have stirred some resentment. Gripes longtime Court Clerk Fred Posey: "I don't need the Great White Father Heflin telling me how to run things." But Steve Suitts, state director of the American Civil Liberties Union, is closer to general Alabama sentiment: "Judge Heflin is one of the few people in this state about whom my grandmother, my mother and I all agree." Heflin has chosen to step down from office when his term expires in January, and many expect him to run for Governor or the U.S. Senate within the next few years.

Meanwhile, he continues with his innovations. This fall, to increase public understanding of the law, he will convene the supreme court in two high schools and hear actual cases. Back in Montgomery, Heflin plans to let TV cameras into his courtroom.

Last month Heflin became chairman of the Conference of Chief Justices. Naturally, he will spend much of his year in office spreading the word to the rest of the U.S. about the lessons in court reform it can learn from Alabama.

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