Superior Court judges William Boyett and Cindy Morris talk with retiring Chief Magistrate Judge Haynes Townsend at a reception honoring the 22-year veteran. In the background are (left) Chris Griffin, who was named to fill Townsend’s unexpired term, and Superior Court Administrator Brad Butler.
photo by Mitch Talley
Haynes Townsend has had just two jobs in his life; now he’s moving on to his passion.
Mr. Townsend says his first job was in the hardware and building supply business at Fraker Hardware in downtown Dalton, where he worked for several years before beginning his second job as a magistrate judge.
At the end of March, that second job came to a close when he retired as chief magistrate of the Whitfield County Magistrate Court. Now, he can focus his full attention on his long-time philanthropic efforts with the Lions Club.
“I’ve had a wonderful career here,” Mr.
Townsend said at a retirement reception given in his honor March 29 at the Whitfield County Courthouse. “It’s been a pleasure to work with the folks in my office that I get to work with every day. It’s a little bit intimidating to be thinking about retiring; it’s a little bit exciting to be thinking about retiring.”
Mr. Townsend will have plenty to keep him busy in his retirement.
He’s been a member of the Lions Club for the past 40 years and is serving as second international vice president.
“So I get to travel all around the globe and visit Lions Clubs,” he said. “We have Lions Clubs in 210 different countries around the world, and while I’m not going to try to visit all of them, I am going to do the best I can to try to help them out.”
Mr. Townsend recalled his first meeting with the Lions Club in 1979.
“A fellow had invited me to go to the meeting, and there was a gentleman there named Mel Johnson, who was running for district governor at the time,” he said. “I listened to him talk and heard him say all the wonderful things that the Lions Club does, and I joined that day. Twenty years later, I did the eulogy at Mel’s funeral, so you build up family all across the world.”
In fact, Mr. Townsend says because of the plethora of Lions Clubs around the globe, there are very few places in the world “where I couldn’t find somebody that would help me if I needed help. So I’ve just expanded my family out worldwide.”
He emphasized the club’s key message that “kindness matters.” “If we all would just remember that and practice it, we would all be a lot better off,” he said.
It’s a mantra he tried to live by on the job at Magistrate Court, too.
“It’s been a great time, a wonderful ride,” he said of his 22 years with the court. “I like to feel that some days I helped make a difference in a few folks’ lives. But you never really know that – just do the job the best you can and hope that everything turns out well. It’s a fun job most of the time, but some of the time it’s heartbreaking – have to put people out of their homes or something like that, that’s the hard part for me. But I understand the position of the landlord as well, so you have to do what you have to do according to the law.”
Mr. Townsend says he appreciates all the support he’s been given during his time with the court. “I’ve had a good working relationship with all areas of county government,” he said. “We’re proud of that. We’ve had a good working relationship with the Superior Court and all the other classes of court, and especially the commissioner’s office, so we want to thank all of them for that. And I hope that things will continue to run well and go seamlessly smooth through this transition.”
The four Superior Court judges – William T. Boyett, Scott Minter, Cindy Morris, and Jim Wilbanks – actually had to name three people to Magistrate Court posts.
They selected current Magistrate Judge Chris Griffin to fill Mr. Townsend’s unexpired term as chief magistrate, named Thomas Lee Phillips II to fill Mr. Griffin’s unexpired term, and chose Rodney “Rod” Weaver to fill the unexpired term of Shana Vinyard, who resigned in February.
Mr. Phillips, a captain with the Dalton Police Department, has been with the department since 1988 and also served 10 years with the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. He is a graduate of the National FBI Academy.
Mr. Weaver served for 25 years with the Georgia Department of Corrections as a counselor, probation officer, and administrator. He has a bachelor’s degree from Georgia State University and a master of divinity degree from the Interdenominational Theological Center. He is an ordained Methodist minister.
The appointments of Mr. Griffin and Mr. Phillips took effect April 1, and the appointment of Mr. Weaver on April 2. All three terms end on Dec. 31, 2020.
Magistrate Court heard more than 14,000 cases last year, and a judge is on call 24 hours a day to handle arrest and search warrants for law enforcement. The court hears a variety of cases, including evictions, civil disputes up to $15,000, violations of county ordinances, and some misdemeanor crimes. The judges also handle first appearances, hearings in which defendants are informed of the charges against them and can make a plea or be referred to Superior Court, depending on the severity of the charges.
“You need this court,” Mr. Townsend told the Dalton Daily Citizen in early March. “It runs very well. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, every case comes through this office somehow or some way. Statewide, Magistrate Court deals with more than one million cases each year, so if you take it out of the equation, you can see how things would just grind to a halt, and a lot of people don’t know exactly what we do.”