By Dean Poling
NASHVILLE — Judge W.D. “Jack” Knight believed in the role of law in society.
“I think the greatest deterrent to crime is punishment, and I think it ought to be swift,” Knight said in a 1996 interview as he prepared to retire as the Alapaha Judicial Circuit’s chief judge after 19 years on the bench.
On Saturday, Knight passed away in his native Berrien County. He was 75 years old.
Earlier this year, Knight released “State of Georgia Vs. Lady Justice,” a publication detailing the three death penalty cases he judged. These cases are presented through news accounts and participants’ commentaries. Some of these comments reflect as much about Knight as they do the death-penalty cases.
“I do remember vividly that Judge Knight was in complete control of his courtroom, as a good judge must be, during this grave and important proceeding. A man’s life was at stake and a woman’s life had been taken,” Robert B. Richbourg, one of Knight’s former law clerks, writes regarding the death-penalty case against William Earl Lynd.
“... Judge Knight made firm but fair rulings. He also did a wonderful job making sure that, despite the difficult task before all of us involved in the case, there must be dignity maintained in his courtroom and that justice must be served.”
One commentary comes from Berrien County attorney Danny Studstill, who defended Raymond C. Phillips in a death-penalty case. Studstill waived a jury trial and presented the case directly to Knight. He hoped that Knight would not “feel compelled to sentence my client to the ultimate punishment.”
Knight felt otherwise and sentenced Phillips to death. Studstill fought the ruling, stating the death penalty did not fit the crime. The Georgia Supreme Court agreed and overturned Knight’s ruling, lowering the sentence to life in prison.
Still, in preparing his book, Knight asked for Studstill’s comments. Studstill refers to Knight as his mentor. Knight had tapped Studstill to serve as the Alapaha Circuit’s public defender. The two men remained in contact throughout the judge’s life.
By the time of “State of Georgia Vs. Lady Justice’s” release in March 2009, the defendants in the other two trials, William Earl Lynd and William Howard Putnam, had been executed — each, many years after Knight’s original verdict.
Preparing for retirement in 1996, neither man had been executed at that time. Knight was not pleased with these delays.
“I guess the saddest commentary on the judicial system is that I’ve sentenced three men, all white men, to die in the electric chair and, to this date, not one of them has died,” he told The Valdosta Daily Times in 1996.
In sentencing people, whether in a death penalty case or far lesser crimes, Knight could do so with a clear conscience.
“If they need sending, I can send them with no remorse,” Knight said of prison sentences. “It’s just like raising a child. If you don’t pop the whip, then somebody’s going to be bad. And if that’s the judge, so be it.”
Though he came to fulfill the role, Knight had no early aspirations to be a judge. Growing up in Ray City in the 1930s and 1940s, he enjoyed the cowboy adventures of Hopalong Cassidy, fishing and swimming in Cat Creek, and riding a board pulled by his father’s wagon. As a boy, Knight wrote, he had many dreams, “but being a lawyer and a judge ranked at the bottom of the dream scale.”
In 1949, his father died. Older brother Jim became surrogate father to the teenaged Jack. Jim set Jack working in the family sawmill.
“It was during this time that I gained insight and harbored respect for the dedicated and determined men who work tirelessly every day doing hard, physical, back-breaking work that offers few, if any, days off for sickness or pleasure,” Knight wrote. It also instilled in him an appreciation for school and education.
Through his and his brother’s hard work, Jack Knight attended college, receiving a degree in business. Jim urged Jack to return to school to study law.
After law school, Knight returned to his native Berrien County, opening a practice in Nashville. He served as Ray City councilman and a state representative. He worked as the city attorney for Alapaha, Enigma and Ray City for 10 years, and as Berrien County’s attorney for 15 years. Gov. George Busbee appointed Knight to fill a newly created Alapaha judgeship in the mid 1970s, a post he maintained until retiring.
