HIGH PROFILE: Judge Wiley Austin Branton Jr. uses his courtroom to teach

Whereas the father for whom he was named made headlines in the 1950s and 1960s, Wiley Branton Jr. has quietly forged his own solid reputation in the world of juvenile justice.

Now in his 27th year, he's retiring at the end of this month as circuit judge (formerly circuit/chancery judge) for the Sixth Judicial District, State of Arkansas, serving Pulaski and Perry counties.

It was a job he didn't expect to come his way. But Branton, 68, refers to his judgeship as "the best job I've ever had."

"It's a job that I really connected with," he says. "And it's a different kind of judgeship. In other cases, the judge just says 'You win, you lose.' Or if it's a jury, the judge is sort of there as a referee and the jury makes the decision. But in the juvenile division cases, the judges sort of have the responsibility of fixing broken people ... fixing families that have issues, or if juveniles are delinquent, trying to turn them around into constructive citizens.

"I feel that I'm tasked, or charged, with the responsibility of changing people's behavior from something that may not be acceptable to something that's acceptable."

Many pooh-pooh juvenile judgeships, telling him, "Oh, you're in kiddie court." But Branton has taken the work seriously enough that he has passed on chances to take advantage of his seniority and, as he puts it, move downtown.

"I wanted to make a statement that this is important work. So I stuck with this," he says. "Sometimes folks in the church talk about my ministry or this or that, but ... I feel like this is where [I was] supposed to be."

As a juvenile court judge, Branton has a motto that there are no throwaway people.

"The kids that we fail today are going to be the same kids that fill up our jails tomorrow ... It'd be far better to try to do something wise with them, to try to get them on the right track." This is why he's tried to plant seeds, telling young people things that will benefit them later.

Every now and then somebody may say, "Thank you, Judge!" But, Branton emphasizes, "if this is a job where you're looking for somebody to thank you, you're really in the wrong business because you don't hear that too often.

"A lot of times they'll curse you out because they don't like you ... So you just have to ... hope you're leading folks in the right direction."

Nate Coulter, executive director of the Central Arkansas Library System and a friend, remembers the time Branton presided over a case in juvenile court that involved Coulter's son, who had been assaulted by another teenager.

"Judge Branton did not let his familiarity with me or my extensive professional relationship with Stephanie [Branton, his wife] get in the way of his duty to apply the legal burden of proof ... to the prosecutor's case," Coulter says.

Branton acquitted the defendant after an eyewitness testified that the assailant was actually someone else, Coulter adds. "Wiley later said Stephanie had fussed at him when he told her what had happened that day in his court, but I was favorably impressed."

Branton's dedication to helping troubled young people become valued contributors to society matches his father's dedication to helping Black people be recognized and treated as such.

MISTAKEN RACIAL IDENTITY

It was due to the very circumstances under which he entered the world, period, that Branton speculates that he was destined to enter the world of law.

The fourth of six children of Lucille and noted civil-rights lawyer Wiley Branton Sr., he was born in 1951 in Fayetteville, where his father was a law student about to graduate. The family's original home was Pine Bluff.

Because of his parents' light complexion, they were sometimes racially misidentified, the younger Branton says. When his mother went to the hospital to give birth, "at some point, they found out we were Black" and his mother was moved from her original room to the hospital's colored section. When the elder Branton complained about his wife's treatment, the hospital administrator told him they didn't have to treat her at all because the Brantons weren't residents of that county.

"My dad pointed out ... 'I am a resident here. And I pay taxes, I own a home here. And if you don't put my wife back in the room you had her in, I [will] a file a lawsuit against you. I'll have little colored boys swimming in your swimming pool.'" His mother was moved back to where she'd been ... and even given flowers.

After his graduation Branton Sr. moved his family back to Pine Bluff, where he began his legal career.

At the time the landmark Brown v. Board of Education school-desegregation verdict came down in 1954, Branton Sr. was active with the NAACP. "He sent out letters to the different school districts in Arkansas, asking, 'OK, now that Brown is out, how are you going to implement Brown?'" Branton Jr. says. "The NAACP ... did not think that the Little Rock School District [desegregation] plan was adequate. So they had my dad file a lawsuit" -- Aaron v. Cooper -- "on behalf of the NAACP and Black plaintiffs against the Little Rock School District."

The 1956 lawsuit drew in the national NAACP and was a prelude to the Central High desegregation crisis. The most famous of the lawyers who became involved in the case was Thurgood Marshall, who went on to be the first Black Supreme Court justice. Marshall visited the Brantons and even spent the night in their home.

That was one of the more pleasant results of the Aaron v. Cooper case. The more unpleasant results: racist hate mail and bomb threats. One cross was burned on the Branton yard; another on the family cemetery plot.

Ironically, "we were still being racially [mis]identified," Branton Jr. says. "They would call up and say, 'You tell that n* lover Wiley Branton he'd better leave town,' or this and that."

In 1962 the family moved to Atlanta, where Branton Sr. became the first director of the Voter Education Project, whose purpose was to get Black people registered across the South. In addition, he traveled around getting civil rights workers released from jail. The younger Brantons got to know such noted civil-rights figures as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who visited their home; and Vernon Jordan, a friend and colleague of Branton Sr.'s.

Three years later, the family moved again -- to Washington, when the elder Branton took the first of a number of civil-rights-related jobs. Graduating from a boarding school in New York state, Branton Jr. wanted to go on to George Washington University. But upon his father's suggestion, he headed to Morehouse College in Atlanta, from which he earned a political science degree in 1973.

He wasn't sure what he wanted to do. "I actually had thought about maybe becoming a police officer." Again acting on a suggestion by his father, he went to law school at Georgetown and earned his juris doctorate in 1976 before returning to Morehouse to direct a new pre-law program. Two years later, Branton Sr. was appointed dean of Howard University Law School. Branton Jr. moved to Washington once again, this time to take over his father's law practice.

In 1983, Branton Jr. married his wife, Stephanie. The two, who had been in first grade together in Pine Bluff, eventually reconnected. They have two adult children, Wiley III and Carolyn Lucille.

As the younger Branton settled into his role as a family man, he decided he needed more predictability and benefits than private practice afforded. He became general counsel for the District of Columbia, Department of Employment Services. Then in 1988, his father died. "I just sort of began to reassess quality-of-life issues," Branton says.

As it happened, the elder Branton had been good friends with the late Little Rock civil-rights lawyer John Walker. The younger Branton had worked with Walker long-distance on civil-rights cases, and upon an offer to join Walker's firm, he returned to the Natural State in 1989 and worked on the Little Rock school desegregation case.

HERE COMES THE JUDGE

The opportunity of a lifetime for Branton was fueled by the lawsuit Eugene Hunt v. State of Arkansas. That suit resulted in the Hunt Decree -- ordered by the U.S. District Court, Eastern District Arkansas on Nov. 7, 1991, according to gis.arkansas.gov -- and the creation of majority-Black judicial districts. New judicial positions were approved, one of which would be in the juvenile division of the Pulaski County circuit courts. The governor was to appoint someone to serve in the post 18 months, after which someone would be chosen via election to fill it.

He had no idea he was being considered as an appointee, Branton says, until "one day I got a call from somebody from [then-Gov. Jim Guy Tucker's] office. And they said, 'Would you like to be a judge?' And I said, 'Hell yeah!'"

He went on the bench in 1993. Initially, he was appointed to the Tenth Division position. But he ran for an identical position in the Eighth Division and was elected in 1994.

Branton has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's Bowen Law School, and also in the criminal justice program at UALR. "I've always enjoyed teaching, but part of what I do in my courtroom is teaching too, because I'm trying to teach people how to live appropriately and how to do things better."

When he talks to children in his court, Branton says, he tells them the same things he'd tell his own children: the value of education, the importance of staying away from the wrong people and making good choices, the need to have a plan for one's self to go forward in life.

He has had some success stories with delinquent kids and foster kids who got the chance to go to college or the military and turn their lives around. Unfortunately, "there have also been horror stories," Branton laments.

"Every day I approach this job, I try to do the right thing. I try to make the best decision with the information that I have," he says. "And I try to be fair to the folks in front of me."

Those who admire him would say he has succeeded.

"Judge Branton is one of the hardest working judges I know," says Brenda Stallings, deputy public defender for the Eighth Division Circuit Court. "Sometimes we have to remind him to take lunch."

Stallings lauds her mentor for stressing the importance of education to kids and their families ... and going a few steps further by providing them with Christmas gifts and Thanksgiving meals, paying for doctor visits and even buying clothes. "One time he said, 'Don't tell my wife, I think I've gone over my allowance for the week,'" Stallings says.

Judge Earnest E. Brown Jr. of the Jefferson-Lincoln County Circuit Court, Sixth Division, got to really know Branton "up close and personal" about 13 years ago.

"I had just won a contested race for Circuit Judge in Pine Bluff" and was given a list of juvenile division judges whose in-court practices he could observe, Brown says. "Judge Branton was one that I really liked." Brown also admires his colleague's commitment to "new and innovative" approaches to doing his job, taking time to serve on various committees and visiting sites of pilot juvenile court programs throughout the country.

"What I always found intriguing about Wiley was how quiet and detached he might seem at first, but in truth how very witty and gregarious he really is," Coulter says. "He's a great storyteller."

HAPPY TRAILS

Branton -- who, in younger days, participated in multiple sports including ice hockey -- says he has a lot of plans for retirement. He plans to "take about 30 days, decompress, meditate, walk and reflect on how I spend my time."

Family time will top the list, especially time with his 1-year-old granddaughter. He also plans on some writing, artistic pursuits, post-pandemic travel, volunteer work.

One thing Branton will not retire from: reminding all "of the road we trod to get where we are."

"We all stand upon the shoulders of somebody else ... We are where we are today because somebody ahead of us took some important steps to advance our cause. And I think that keeps us humble and keeps things in perspective."

SELF PORTRAIT

Wiley Branton Jr.

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: Aug. 12, 1951, Fayetteville

BOOK RECENTLY READ: "How to Be an Antiracist" by Ibram X. Kendi

SOMETHING FEW PEOPLE KNOW: The variety of interests and hobbies I have -- scuba diving, photography, astronomy, boat building, painting, cooking (to name a few!)

WHAT I'D LIKE TO ACCOMPLISH: Learn to play the piano

MY MOST VALUABLE POSSESSION: My camera

MY MOST PRECIOUS CHILDHOOD MEMORY: Christmas morning with my five siblings

FIVE PEOPLE I'D INVITE TO A FANTASY DINNER: Wynton Marsalis, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ibram X. Kendi, Kerry Washington, Susan Rice

BEST GIFT I'VE EVER RECEIVED: My granddaughter

ONE PERSON I WOULD LOVE TO MEET: President Barack Obama

I AM MOST PROUD OF: My service as a judge

ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP: Eclectic