Tom Stagg, top area U.S. judge, dies

Tom Stagg, appointed to the U.S. District Court in 1974 and long the senior United States federal judge for the Western District of Louisiana, died at home late Tuesday at age 92 after a lengthy illness.

Paramedics and U.S. marshals responded to his residence after getting a distress call, longtime friend and colleague U.S. District Judge Maury Hicks said.

"Tom Stagg represented all that is right and just within the Judiciary of the United States," Hicks said of his friend late Tuesday. "Detail-oriented and thoroughly prepared for hearings and trials, he was sometimes better prepared than the lawyers."

Hicks said Stagg ran his court "efficiently, with due respect for the litigants and genuine concern for those who sought justice in his court.

"In my first few years as a lawyer I tried several cases in his court. I quickly absorbed the power and meaning of thorough preparation and courtroom decorum. It became an established pattern for the remainder of my career as a lawyer, until I was sworn in by Judge Stagg as a federal district judge12 years ago. At our first judges' lunch in his kitchen , he insisted that I call him 'Tom.' After 26 years of calling him Judge Stagg, I had trouble calling him Tom, and I never quite abandoned calling him Judge out of respect for him."

Most of the near-century Stagg lived was productive, said another longtime friend and peer, U.S. District Judge Don Walter.

"What a guy," Walter said. "He was my mentor – he got me the U.S. Attorney's job and he got me this one. God grant rest to this good and noble man. He gave his all to his country, in war and peace. Two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star! And for the last 40 years a United States District Judge – and the best. Most of all, he was a husband, father, grandfather – and friend."

Known for his legal acumen, dry humor and walking, badminton and bow ties, Stagg cut a colorful figure in state and regional legal circles, training dozens of attorneys and future judges as his law clerks and setting a high bar for his peers.

"Tom Stagg was one of the finest people I have ever known," said Dee D. Drell, Chief U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Louisiana. "He had it all: Intelligence, spirit, patriotism, wisdom and wit! When he taught you a lesson in the law, you never forgot it and neither did he. He and the life he lived made me a better lawyer, a better judge and, most importantly, a better person. I shall miss his Friday, late afternoon, call just to see who was still in the office."

U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Carl E. Stewart added accolades.

"Judge Tom Stagg exemplified the very finest attributes of a judicial officer," Stewart said. "He was knowledgeable, well prepared, punctual, articulate and even-handed in working with people on a daily basis. Because of my long term admiration for him, I dedicated the 2013 Fifth Circuit Judicial Conference held at Fort Worth, Texas, in his honor."

Stagg "loved his family first, but a close second was his job as a federal judge and his court family," said U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Erny Foote. "He set the standard for our court by his example: Be on time; be the best prepared person in the room; be respectful of the lawyers; and be unfailingly impartial. Tom held everyone to the same exacting standards as he held himself. But no one who ever worked for him or with him failed to love him: his charm, his wit, his exuberance, his ability to treat you like you were the most important person in the room."

Among the dozens of current judges at top attorneys who once clerked for Stagg is U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Hornsby, who was his law clerk from 1988 to 1990.

"Clerking for Judge Tom Stagg was a life changing and career defining experience," Hornsby said. "He expected the very best from us and the lawyers who appeared before him."

U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of Texas Roy Payne, a former law clerk for Stagg, said that "forty years ago, Tom Stagg took me into his circle for what I expected would just be a two-year job. But he shaped me in ways I didn't then understand, and forever altered the path of my life. His nurture and wise counsel are always in the back of my mind and the minds of the two generations of lawyers who have worked in his chambers. Put simply, he is the greatest man I have ever known."

One of the nation's top intellectual property attorneys, Jane Politz Brandt, clerked for Stagg from 1986 to 1988.

"Judge Stagg was always expanding my knowledge," she said. "He made it his mission to use a word every day which would require me to look it up in his dictionary. He had a special relationship with all of his clerks. He was like a second father to me, especially after mine passed away."

Former Shreveport City Councilman Tom Arceneaux clerked for Stagg early in both their careers, 1976-78.

"Judge Stagg had been on the bench just over two years, and I was his fourth law clerk," Arceneaux recalled. "It was a two-year hitch, a bit unusual these days, but standard fare for the Judge. He wanted time for clerks to learn the ropes. It also gave us much more time with him.

"From the beginning I learned from watching him. He was always meticulously prepared, and he expected lawyers who appeared before him (and law clerks who served him) to be prepared as well. He read every brief, looked up the statutes and cases cited, and read opinions from the Supreme Court of the United States and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (which "graded his papers") as they came out. He was an expert in the law and a student of law, government and society."

Stagg had a long association with Shreveport, the local business and legal community, and The Times. He came from a colonial Virginia family.

His father, Thomas Eaton Stagg Sr., was born in Richmond, Virginia, and came to Shreveport in 1919 after World War I service. He married Beulah Meyer, and was active in establishing local tire and rubber franchises and administering property of his late father-in-law, Abe Meyer. Tom Stagg Sr. died in 1960.

His mother, Beulah Meyer Stagg, died in 1939 after a long period of failing health. Stagg, then a 16-year-old senior at Byrd High School, discovered his mother's body in the family home in South Highlands. That early brush with mortality steeled the 1939 Byrd graduate, who four years later joined the U.S. Army, rising to the rank of captain and earning the coveted Combat Infantryman Badge, a Bronze Star for valor, a second Bronze Star for meritorious service and the Purple Heart with oak leaf cluster.

Stagg was saved from death when a German bullet struck a Bible he carried in his pocket. He shared that story, and showed the bullet-scarred holy book, to colleagues and friends for decades.

After his military service, Stagg briefly attended Cambridge University in Great Britain and then the LSU Law Center, earning his JD in 1949 and joining the firm Hargrove, Guyton, Van Hook and Hargrove. In solo practice from 1953 to 1958, he later served as a senior partner in the firms Stagg, Cady, Johnson and Haygood and Stagg, Cady and Beard. He also was an executive with the King Hardware Company from 1955 to 1974 and was president of the Abe Meyer Corporation from 1960 to 1974 and of Stagg Investments from 1964 to 1974, when he divested his business interests upon elevation to the federal court.

A registered Republican since 1949, he was the Republican National Committeeman from Louisiana from 1964 to 1972, a member of the executive committee of the Republican National Committee from 1964 to 1968 and a five-time delegate to GOP national conventions from 1956 to 1972.

In 1968, he made an unsuccessful bid for the Louisiana State Senate. In 1968, Stagg supported Richard M. Nixon's bid for the presidential nomination. He challenged political corruption in Louisiana and in 1972 ran for state attorney general, losing to Billy Guste, who went on to serve 20 years in that post. After that loss, Stagg left his position as Republican national committeeman in favor of David Treen. Stagg mulled a run for the U.S. Senate in 1972 but chose not to campaign, the seat going to a political rival, fellow local attorney J. Bennett Johnston Jr.

Stagg was nominated to the federal judicial seat vacated by Ben C. Dawkins Jr. on Feb. 18, 1974, and was confirmed by the Senate on March 7, 1974, receiving his federal commission the following day. He was sworn in that April 26. A decade later he was named chief judge, a position he held until 1991.

He assumed senior status on Feb. 29, 1992, but until recent months maintained a full staff and case load, also serving on several federal circuit courts of appeal panels.

"Without a doubt he was the finest trial judge I had ever met," Hicks said. "Without ever knowing it, he had served as my silent mentor, a role model. I told him of his role as a teacher and role model after joining him on the bench, and he volunteered to serve as my judicial mentor, always available to discuss an evidence problem, or judicial philosophy, or the world in general. He became a close friend. To have served with Judge Tom Stagg on the federal bench for 12 years is a singular honor.

"A giant has fallen. His death leaves a hole in our judicial family and a hole in my heart. He positively impacted the careers of so many lawyers. This remarkable man left a legacy of love of family, of duty and honor and love of this nation, its judicial system, and the rule of law. Tom Stagg loved being a federal judge. We all miss him."

On the 30th anniversary of his federal service, Stagg was awarded the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center's Distinguished Alumnus award. His papers are at the Noel Archives at LSUS.

His sister, Betty Jane Stagg, who died in 1990, was a noted local writer and advertising executive who once worked for The Times.

Noted for his wildflower photography, Stagg enjoyed taking trips to indulge in his hobby, the fruits of which adorned his office.

"I can't paint or sculpt or draw," he told a local reporter a year after he joined the federal bench. "So I use my camera. It's my way of being creative."

Even that was used by Stagg as a way to nurture his clerks and the law community.

"Judge Stagg was never too deep in his studies to notice a blooming wildflower along the way," Arceneaux said. "He'd holler, 'Stop the car!' Then he'd get out his Hasselblad camera for a photo. I've still got some of those cherished photos. He literally taught me to stop and smell the roses, and he gave me a small metal and stone snail to remind me to slow down. That snail still sits on my desk as a reminder."

Stagg also voraciously pursued knowledge in areas far removed from law. Once, he donned a striped "Paris Bistro" apron and took cooking lessons from The Times' late food writer and reporter Carolyn Flournoy. He also took bread-making lessons from Shirley Faludi.

"When I retire, I am learning for that purpose," he told Times columnist Maggie Martin. "I have decided that is one of the things that I want to know how to do. I am learning to grow flowers and how to take pictures."

An avid walker, Stagg was up many mornings to take a 6 a.m. three-mile jaunt around his neighborhood, often with longtime friend and neighbor Dr. Mark Vigen. Often during his walks, Stagg would pick up the morning papers along his route and put them on people's doorsteps.

Stagg was named to the Byrd High Hall of Fame in 1990. He also attended Marion Military Institute in Marion, Alabama and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1943.

He was married to the former Mary Margaret O'Brien in 1946 and is survived by her and their two grown daughters, Julie and Margaret Mary.

Services for Tom Stagg are pending.