Correction: Brooke Ware, law clerk for Pulaski County Circuit Judge Collins Kilgore, was one of the four staff members who organized Kilgore’s retirement party. Her name was omitted from the list of party organizers in a story in Thursday’s editions about Kilgore’s retirement.
When the sun went down on New Year's Eve, it not only marked the end of 2014, but it also set on the 24-year judicial career of Collins Kilgore, a Pulaski County circuit judge whose 2001 ruling contributed to a fundamental reshaping of the funding structure of the state's public schools.
"He is deserving of every Arkansas schoolchild's admiration and gratitude," said attorney David Matthews of Rogers, who worked on the long-running lawsuit that led to the decision.
During Kilgore's time on the bench, the 73-year-old jurist presided over thousands of divorces, child custody cases and civil suits, involving such subjects as medical malpractice, debts, the death penalty, open records and fraud.
Last year, Kilgore ordered a Hawaiian tour operator to pay $4.3 million in fines and restitution for cheating 149 Fort Smith high school students out of the vacations they and their chaperones had purchased from him in 2012.
But Matthews said generations of Arkansas schoolchildren should revere Kilgore for the judge's ruling in the Lake View school-finance case, so called after the rural school district that brought suit in 1992.
"The significant reforms and unprecedented advances in Arkansas education would not have happened but for Collins Kilgore. Without Judge Kilgore, I fear our state would have been consigned to continued educational malaise," said Matthews, who worked on the case for more than 10 years. "In the end, he wrote a very detailed opinion that was upheld, and then enforced in extraordinary ways by the [Arkansas] Supreme Court. His opinion, and the resolve of the Supreme Court, have changed Arkansas forever."
The litigation -- based on the claims that school funding was unfair, inadequate and in violation of standards required by the state constitution -- ran for 15 years and worked its way through two circuit court judges, including Kilgore, before ending in 2007. It inspired a voter-approved constitutional funding amendment and endured four reviews of various scope by the state Supreme Court. Although the case has been concluded for seven years, it continues to echo in other ongoing school-funding litigation.
In 2000, Kilgore presided over a 19-day trial that featured 36 witnesses and generated a 20,878-page record. He issued his 64-page ruling seven months later in May 2001, writing that "Taxation, political and cultural hurdles to a solution may seem to create a Gordian knot; a problem not to be solved.
"However, it can be safely said that the one constant is the agreement that an adequate education for our children is necessary. Our Constitution requires it.
"Too many of our children are leaving school for a life of deprivation, burdening our culture with the corrosive effects of citizens who lack the education to contribute to their community's welfare but who will be unable to live their own lives except, in many cases, on the outermost fringe of human existence. No problem we face as a state needs more immediate attention."
"If our best are not being prepared for the rigors and trials of an ever increasingly complex world, what is happening to the least advantaged to whom we owe an equal or greater duty?" it states.
Friends describe Kilgore as soft-spoken, and he lived up to that reputation when talking about the Lake View case 13 years later, describing the results in a laconic manner as "satisfying."
He said he is certain his ruling would not have survived an appeal if he hadn't been right.
"I thought the decision was clear-cut," said Kilgore, noting that the litigation was 8 years old when he took it over and had already been through trial with another judge. "There is little doubt in my mind that the [Arkansas] Supreme Court would have reversed a contrary decision. It is curious to me why the issue was not settled years earlier."
Questioned about his plans for life after the judiciary and what 24 years on the bench taught him, Kilgore replied with brevity and wit.
Retirement, he said, will be an effort "to try and avoid obligations and responsibilities as much as possible."
Asked about what he's learned after almost a quarter-century of observing human behavior over a judge's gavel, Kilgore said there is almost nothing more rigid and fixed than human nature.
"People believe what they want to believe," he said. "People don't change, or not very much, at least."
His successor, Mike Reif, who is to be sworn in today, said he's known Kilgore from his earliest days as a lawyer. Reif, 56, said the judge has made a career out of handling complex litigation while forging a reputation for treating others with respect and decency. Kilgore set an example he hopes to follow, Reif said.
"Judge Kilgore is extremely intelligent and well-read. He took on difficult cases and made thoughtful and well-reasoned decisions," Reif said. "However, the trait that made Judge Kilgore stand out was that he was respectful of the attorneys, the parties and witnesses who appeared before him. I am honored to have been elected and to be able to take over the position of a man and judge who I respect and admire."
Those are the qualities that first drew U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson to Kilgore, first as a candidate for judge, then as a friend.
"My first impression was that he was a fine lawyer and a capital fellow," Wilson said. "Over the years, he has demonstrated, beyond peradventure, that my first impression was correct. Collins is very intelligent and has a sense of humor as well as a keen sense of justice."
Kilgore won his seat, now one of 17 judgeships that serve the 6th Judicial District of Perry and Pulaski counties, in 1990, running against an incumbent.
"When he decided to run against an incumbent judge, my [law] partners and I were willing to put our widow's mite into the campaign," Wilson said. "Collins is not a natural politician -- he is the retiring sort -- but he put a full effort into the campaign and won. I'm happy to say that he has served with great distinction over the years. His retirement will be a definite loss for the Arkansas judiciary."
Anne White, Kilgore's long-term law clerk who now works for the state Court of Appeals, said Kilgore was an inspiring mentor. She said most lawyers and litigants who appeared before Kilgore don't realize how hard he worked at the job.
"To me, he embodies the qualities of a great judge. He is thoughtful, respectful, hard-working, fair-minded, almost impossible to anger, and quick to forgive and forget," said White, who worked for the judge for eight years.
"The job of being a trial judge weighs on a person because they are always concerned about following the law and doing right by those who appear in their court. He often took time after court to fully digest and understand the issues in a case. This also resulted in our office doing a fair amount of our own opinion writing so that the reasoning behind his decision would be clear."
A sure sign of Kilgore's popularity was his recent farewell party, organized by his staff, administrative assistant AiLien Drahaim, bailiff Kwanis Davis and court reporter Mimi Ambrose, that came with only one requirement from the judge -- no speeches, no farewell remarks.
The festivities in his courtroom drew about 60 well-wishers, including wife, Priscilla, former staff and 13 current and former Pulaski County circuit judges, and included a surprise appearance by Kilgore's two sons, Collins, a Los Angeles lawyer, and Hank, who lives and works in Washington, D.C.
Metro on 01/01/2015