Circuit Judge John Maddux to Retire in 2014

Another long time judge in the 13th Judicial District has decided to call it quits after completing his current term of office.
After serving for what will be 30 years next year, Circuit Court Judge John J. Maddux, Jr. has announced that he will not seek re-election and will be leaving the bench when his term expires on August 31, 2014.
Judge Maddux was first elected Circuit Court Judge in 1984, and was re-elected unopposed in 1990, 1998 and 2006.
He serves DeKalb and six other counties in the 13th Judicial District.
Criminal Court Judge Leon Burns, Jr. is also expected to retire at the end of his term next year, although he has apparently made no official announcement.
Judge Maddux has served as past president of the Tennessee Judicial Conference and the Tennessee Trial Judges Association. He has been a member of the Tennessee Pattern Jury Instruction-Civil Committee for 28 years. He was a member of the two person sub-committee which drafted the initial comparative fault jury instructions which were later modified and adopted by the full committee.
He was chairman of the Tennessee Pattern Jury Instruction Clarity Sub-¬Committee, which rewrote the entire pattern jury instruction book so that civil jury instructions would be more easily understood by jurors, attorneys and judges.
He has sat by special designation on the Tennessee Court of Appeals, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals and the Supreme Court Special Workers’ Compensation Panel. Judge Maddux was offered, but respectfully declined, a nomination for a Federal District Court judgeship.
Judge Maddux currently serves as chairman of the Judicial Conference’s Long Range Planning Committee and has served as a member of the Legislative Committee and the Judicial Education Committee.
He was Tennessee’s delegate to the National Conference of the Judiciary on Bioethical Issues.
In 2010, Judge Maddux was elected chairman of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Judicial Conference Foundation, Inc., a position he now holds.
The past presidents of the Judicial Conference along with three at large board members comprise the directors of the Foundation. The Foundation’s mission is to offer need based scholarships for students at each of the colleges of law in Tennessee.
In 2011, Judge Maddux was awarded the Justice Frank F. Drowota III Outstanding Judicial Service Award.
Last year, he was chosen to be a fellow of the American Bar Association which is an honor limited to less than one percent of the lawyers in America.
Judge Maddux has presided in approximately 600 judicial settlement conferences.
These settlement conferences are a form of mediation and have been successful almost 85 percent of the time.
For 35 years, he has served as State Chairman of Tennessee American Legion Boys State. During that time approximately 20,000 17-year-old delegates have attended Tennessee American Legion Boys State at Tennessee Tech University.
He is the author of a book titled “Tennessee Government,” a copy of which is given to each Boys State delegate to study and be tested on during the week of Boys State.
Tennessee’s American Legion Boys State is currently ranked as the number one Boys State program in the nation.
Judge Maddux has made presentations on comparative fault law to the Tennessee Judicial Conference, the Tennessee House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, and several Tennessee attorney organizations.
He is one of the instructors who teaches the section on jury trials at the Tennessee Judicial Conference’s Judicial Academy for new judges. Judge Maddux has taught the course on business law at Tennessee Tech University.
Judge Maddux attended undergraduate school at Tennessee Tech University and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He received his J.D. degree from the University of Tennessee.
He practiced both civil and criminal law in state and federal courts in Tennessee.