Boyce F. Martin, Jr.
| Boyce F. Martin Jr. | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit | |
|
In office October 1, 1996 – September 30, 2003 |
|
| Preceded by | Gilbert Merritt |
| Succeeded by | Danny Boggs |
| Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit | |
|
In office September 26, 1979 – August 16, 2013 |
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| Appointed by | Jimmy Carter |
| Preceded by | Seat established |
| Succeeded by | Amul Thapar |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Boyce Ficklen Martin Jr. October 23, 1935 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died |
June 1, 2016 (aged 80) Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Alma mater |
Davidson College University of Virginia |
Boyce Ficklen Martin Jr. (October 23, 1935 – June 1, 2016) was a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Appointed by Jimmy Carter in 1979, Martin served as Chief Judge of the circuit from 1996 to 2003 and wrote more than 1,100 opinions during his 34-year tenure. Martin lived in Louisville, Kentucky.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Martin received an A.B. from Davidson College in 1957. After graduating, he first worked in banking. Later, while serving in the U.S. Army Reserve, he went to the University of Virginia School of Law and received his law degree in 1963. Immediately after graduation he served as a law clerk to Shackelford Miller, then Chief Judge of the Sixth Circuit – a position he would later hold himself. In 1964 and 1965, Martin served first as an assistant United States Attorney, and then as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky. He left for private practice in Louisville, Kentucky for a short time, but was soon appointed by the Governor of Kentucky to fill a vacancy on the Jefferson Circuit Court in early 1974. In the November 1974 elections he was endorsed by the Louisville Courier-Journal which praised him for his "innate fairness, temperament, experience, and training necessary to become an outstanding circuit judge." He won by a landslide.
In the 1970s, Martin worked behind the scenes lobbying to reform the Kentucky judiciary. The Kentucky court system had been little changed since 1850, and it had a host of problems. "Kentucky had a multiplicity of misdemeanor courts that were presided over, for the most part, by non-lawyer judges. There were county courts, magistrate courts, municipal courts, and police courts. It was not uncommon for the judges of these courts to be totally untrained in the law, politically partisan, and, in some cases, of dubious literacy." Appeals from these courts went to the Kentucky Court of Appeals whose decisions were of high quality, but could take two or three years to be handed down. The reform efforts bore fruit on November 4, 1975 when an amendment to the state constitution was passed by 54%. The amendment cleared the way to create a unified court system with a new intermediate Court of Appeals and the Kentucky Supreme Court replacing the old highest court.
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