For nearly four decades, Judge Robert Ingram “Rip” Prichard III presided over trials in Marion County and throughout the 15th Judicial Distinct.
The 78-year-old from Carriere died Dec. 2 and is being remembered this week across South Mississippi. Gov. Bill Waller appointed him to the bench in 1972, and at the time he left office in 2010 he was the longest serving trial judge in the state.
Carolyn Arinder of the 15th Judicial District Attorney’s Office remembers Prichard as hard working and tough.
“He was rough and gruff on the outside, but he really wasn’t,” she said. “He was a big teddy bear. I remember he would keep us late. He would work all hours of the night. He was always consistent, and he didn’t beat around the bush. He was always firm. If you went to trial and were convicted, you knew you were going to get the max time.”
Assistant DA Morris Sweatt also remembered Prichard as tough.
“He convicted a drug seller and sentenced him to 120 years in prison,” he said. “The man yelled at him, ‘Judge, I can’t do 120 years in prison.’ He came back and told him, ‘Do the best you can.’”
Sweatt had the opportunity to work with Prichard for several decades.
“He was judge when I came here in 1985,” he said. “He was always prepared – he knew what the law was. He was very firm. He once sentenced a guy to Parchman or Rankin County and ordered the deputy to transport him to prison immediately. He said, ‘I want you to take him right now.’ The deputy answered that they wouldn’t take him that day. He said, ‘Take him up there and cuff him to the fence.’ That was just his way, he was very firm.”
Columbia Police Chief Mike Cooper served as head of the Pearl River Basin Task Force during part of Prichard’s time on the bench and said Prichard helped send many drug dealers that Cooper’s team arrested to prison.
“I loved Judge Prichard,” he said. “He was definitely a no-nonsense judge. All law enforcement loved him because he was going to go by the book. He was strict on somebody when they were found guilty. As a matter of fact, one of the guys that is sitting in prison right now was given 120 years with no chance of parole. I’d put a wig on and went and bought from this guy; he swore up and down that he didn’t have anything on him. We had been running search warrants on his house and couldn’t find where he was hiding his dope. I went and put the wig on and bought from him and we went to trial. Judge Prichard gave him 120 years when he was found guilty.”
Circuit Clerk Janette Nolan was a deputy clerk when Prichard was judge and said similar things about the man who served on the bench for 38 years.
“I know that Judge Prichard was respected as a judge, but he was also a multi-faceted gentleman,” she said. “Whether it was hunting or relating a story, it didn’t matter who you were – he could relate to you. He commanded respect, and he earned it.
District Attorney Hal Kittrell worked with Prichard for more than 25 years, and Assistant DA Kim Harlin served as Prichard’s law clerk before joining the DA’s Office. Both reflected on the life of the man they respected Monday as they sat in Kittrell’s office in Columbia.
“I’ve known Judge Prichard since I came to Columbia in 1985,” Kittrell said. “He had been on the bench a long time when I got here. I will say this about him, he truly was a judge’s judge; he was fair to both sides. It truly didn’t matter if it was civil side with plaintiff or defendant and it didn’t matter on the criminal side if you were the state or the defendant, whatever the law said, that’s what applied. I had a lot of respect for him in that regard.”
Kittrell said attorneys and criminals alike knew what was coming with Prichard.
“He was fair across the board,” he said. “Fair may not be what you wanted it to be because it may not have been for you as far as the ruling was, but there is no doubt he was fair to everybody. He was well-read and he knew the law. He should have been on the Supreme Court in my opinion. He’s that good at what he did.”
Harlin said she owes much of her knowledge of law to her time with Prichard.
“He was great,” she said. “He was very fair. From my standpoint, he was easy to work with. He really knew what the law was. He would always review motions, and I would review motions and then we’d talk about them. He would send me in the right direction on what to do with things and I hope I helped him on things, too.”
Harlin said Prichard was well prepared for each case he heard.
“He read everything,” she said. “He would research everything. We would talk about it, but he already had his own opinion about what it should be and what the law said about it. You would go into the motion hearings and everybody would go into a conference and he would give his opinion. He would have his opinion drafted before attorneys came in and gave their arguments. If he was in favor of your position, you really didn’t have anything to say when you left the conferences.”
Kittrell said attorneys appreciated Prichard’s knowledge and the research he did on the cases and case law.
“You didn’t just go in there and him not know what you were in there about,” Kittrell said. “He knew exactly what was going on. I don’t know how many times we sat there and argued and then he said, ‘That’s OK, this is the way I’m going to rule.’ He already had a 15-page order prepared and I thought, ‘Why didn’t you just tell us that at the beginning?’ We could have saved this 30 minutes. But he wanted to hear the arguments, even if they didn’t match his ruling. He always gave you the opportunity.”
Besides professionally, Kittrell was knew Prichard personally outside the courtroom.
“He was a blast,” Kittrell said. “We always made it a point when we would go hunting with him to tell him before we got on the plane to go pheasant hunting, ‘All right, judge, you’re not a judge now, you’re just Rip.’ He would reply, ‘We’ll just see about that.’ We would go on the hunting trips and we would call him Rip. I’ve got news for you, though, when we were in that courtroom, we called him judge. We really got to know him on a personal basis when we went pheasant hunting. He would invite me down to duck hunt, we had great duck hunts. He and I really got together a lot because he was a big turkey hunter and I was too. He would have me down to his place and I’d call for him; I just have great memories. He’d invite me and I’d spend the night at his cabin. Marie, his wife, was just very polite and gracious. We had that relationship outside the bench.”
Prichard, however, was able to separate the friendships from his professional life.
“When we were in the courtroom, he was the judge and I was the lawyer,” Kittrell said. “We had a respect for that. I have a lot of respect for him. He’s one of the best judges I was every affiliated with. He was good at what he did and he knew the law. I loved that about him. He treated everybody the same. His intellect was phenomenal. He ran a good, tight ship and had a lot of respect for everybody. When it was business, it was business. Everybody said repeatedly that you got your day in court with Judge Prichard. ‘You got a fair day in court with him.’”
Prichard, an Atlanta native, graduated law school from the University of Alabama and began practicing law in Picayune in 1963
“He was an innovator who gave great leadership to the development of Uniform Criminal Rules adopted by the Mississippi Supreme Court in 2016,” Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. said in a statement. “He and I spoke frequently on administrative and rules matters when he was a trial judge and I know of his commitment to the fair, efficient and independent administration of justice. He will be remembered as an outstanding jurist.”
A funeral service for Prichard will be held at 3 p.m. Thursday at First Baptist Church of Picayune. Visitation is scheduled from noon to 3 p.m. at the church. Burial will be in New Palestine Cemetery. McDonald Funeral Home in Picayune is handling arrangements.
Survivors include wife Marie Hutchinson Prichard; sons Robert “Rip” Ingram Prichard IV and Jeffrey
Wayne Prichard; and daughters Chelye Amis and Tonya Ramsay; 10 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
Pictured Above: Judge Robert Ingram “Rip” Prichard is being remembered as a fair and tough presence on the bench.
