John Brantley  Crawley,
  1995 - 2007

Judge John Brantley Crawley was born in Troy, Alabama, on February 28, 1940. He grew up with his twin brother Larry, his sister Nancy, and younger brother William on the family farm near Banks in Pike County.

Judge Crawley graduated from Pike County High School in Brundidge, Alabama, in 1958, joined the Alabama National Guard, and was called to active duty with the United States Army during the Berlin Crisis in 1961-62. He attended Auburn University and Troy State University.

He is a graduate of the University of Alabama and the University of Alabama School of Law. He was admitted to the Alabama State Bar in April 1966. He is admitted to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.

He served as a law clerk on the Court of Appeals of Alabama and later served as an Assistant Attorney General assigned to the Alabama Department of Revenue. He practiced law in Dothan in 1968-69 and began practicing in Troy in 1969. While representing handicapped students, he helped establish Hand-in-Hand, a nonprofit organization devoted to helping handicapped students obtain a free appropriate public education.

In April 1991, Governor Hunt appointed him Circuit Judge of the 12th Judicial Circuit for Pike and Coffee Counties, and he served until January 1993. He then resumed his law practice; after being elected to the Court of Civil Appeals, he took office in January 1995. In 1994, he accepted no contributions and spent no money campaigning for this office. Judge Crawley serves on the Supreme Court Standing Committee on the Alabama Rules of Juvenile Procedure and its Advisory Committee on Child Support Guidelines and Enforcement, and on the Alabama State Bar's Committee on Alternative Methods of Dispute Resolution. He served on Chief Justice Hooper's Task Force on Judicial Elections, the Governor's State Agency on Alternative Dispute Resolution Task Force, and by appointment of the Alabama Supreme Court to the Judicial Inquiry Commission. He is the author of, Is the Honeymoon Over for Common-Law Marriage: A Consideration of the Continued Viability of the Common-Law Marriage Doctrine, published in the Cumberland Law Review.

His family has a long history of government service and academic achievement. His parents were Wonnie Bowden Crawley and William Douglas Crawley. His mother, who ran a bookmobile in Pike and Barbour Counties, was the first woman elected to the Pike County Board of Education. His maternal grandfather, Alex Bowden, attended Baptist Collegiate Institute and retired from operating a "rolling store" (a general store on wheels). His maternal grandmother, Alice Windham Bowden, was a housewife. His father attended the University of Alabama and served in the United States Army in World War II as a bombardier and volunteered to fly additional bombing missions over Germany. He retired from the United States Postal Service. His paternal grandfather, W. B. Crawley, was active in agricultural organizations, served as President of the Georgia-Florida-Alabama Peanut Association, and was appointed by President Roosevelt as Alabama State Chairman of the Agricultural Adjustment Association and by President Truman to the Board of Directors of the Commodity Credit Corporation. His paternal grandmother, Willie T. Brantley Crawley, a housewife, attended Troy Normal School. All of their children and grandchildren attended college. Four generations of Judge Crawley's family have graduated from Auburn University.

He is married to Sherrie Johnston of Brundidge, Alabama, who was raised on a farm and attended Troy State University. Judge Crawley is a member, deacon, and former Sunday School teacher of the Banks Baptist Church. He is a Mason. Their son, Brantley Johnston Crawley, is a graduate of the University of Alabama and George Washington University.

On January 21, 1999, he attended the afternoon session of the Impeachment Trial of the President of the United States. On March 26, 2002, he and his wife attended oral argument before the Supreme Court of the United States in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, 536 U.S. 765, 122 S.Ct. 2528, 2534, 153 L.Ed.2d 694 (2002), and was treated to a vigorous exchange between the justices and the attorneys for the parties. It held the Minnesota Supreme Court's canon of judicial conduct prohibiting candidates for judicial election from announcing their views on disputed legal and political issues violates the First Amendment.