Jerry Summers
Numerous stories exist about the late Central and Auburn University athlete Bobby Hoppe. Some sources are correct, some are not. Here is my version:
(1) Bobby’s legend as the “best football player in the history of Chattanooga” might be disputed by supporters of Lamar Wheat of Central, John Hannah of Baylor, Reggie White of Howard, Blake Moore, Jr. of Baylor and Tom Mullady of McCallie. However, based on Bobby’s high school career and accomplishments, he would rank at the top. Potentially two of the most talented football players of the 50s-80s era were Charles Morgan, who was Reggie White’s teammate at Howard, and Charlie Cantrell of Central who was as fast as Hoppe and much bigger. For different reasons neither reached their potential. The list of the “best” could include many others.
Legendary coach at Central and Baylor, the late E. B. “Red” Etter, would certainly acknowledge that Hoppe was significantly responsible for Central’s extraordinary success during Hoppe’s era at the old school on Dodds Avenue in 1951-1953. A former Central football player who visited the Etter home confirms that the coach had retained a lot of memorabilia about the Hoppe era. His son, Gene, attended Central for six years until he graduated in 1957 as a quarterback, kicked extra points and field goals, would have a distinguished football career at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and is a knowledgeable source about Bobby. He also would play in minor league baseball for nine years and was a successful baseball coach at The Baylor School.
(2) The ESPN special on SEC Alternate Network is surprisingly accurate in spite of the lack of surviving witnesses to cover many of the events in Bobby Hoppe’s life from the July 20, 1957, killing of Don Hudson to Hoppe’s death on April 7, 2008, at the age of 73.
One individual who could add a lot to the Hoppe career at Auburn would be Signal Mountain resident Dave Woodward who attended and played for the Auburn football team as a tackle from Cedartown, Ga., from 1958-1962 and has a strong recollection of the many stories told about Hoppe’s activities on the Plains by others who were there and lived them.
Bobby and Tommy Lorino both started out at left halfback and Coach Shug Jordan would later move Hoppe to right halfback in the “T formation” to take advantage of both young men's football talents.
(3) The book “A Matter of Conscience” by Bobby’s wife and widow Sherry Lee Hoppe and co-author Dennis B. Burke covering the couple’s life together could be a sequel to Tammy Wynette’s song, “Stand by Your Man,” with her fervent support of her late husband since their marriage in 1971 until his death in 2008.
I make that flippant remark not as a criticism of Sherry Hoppe’s devotion but only as a prelude to correcting some of the legal errors in said publication.
There is also an implied suggestion that records have been destroyed and disappeared that also needs to be explained
When a case ends with a “not guilty” verdict, hung jury, or is dismissed by the prosecution without a retrial the testimony of witnesses in court at an evidentiary hearing or trial are not transcribed and typed up because of the costs. However, the entries into the official court record are open, available, and can be purchased by anyone willing to pay the court reporter. The official court record reflects that Sherry Hoppe, Bobby’s widow, on July 21, 2008, asked Judge Joe DiRisio’s court reporter, Barbara Bradford, to type up the trial proceedings, three months after Hoppe’s death.
Absent from the court record would be any grand jury testimony in 1966 (when the grand jurors originally did not indict Bobby Hoppe) and 1988 when they did indict him for first-degree murder.
In Hamilton County the District Attorney’s Office keeps a large bound notebook that briefly lists each case and the secretary of the grand jury will briefly write up two or three lines or sentences about a particular case and the name of the officer presenting the case to said body.
Because grand jury proceedings are considered to be secret during its term of service they are not normally made public but could be obtained by court order or a request made to the prosecution for exculpatory evidence (favorable to the defendant). It is unlikely that any such evidence existed in the grand jury or it would have been disclosed to the defense attorneys.
It should also be noted that the tenacious efforts of Don Hudson’s dedicated mother, Georgia Hudson, was probably the main reason that her son’s death did not remain an “unsolved murder” from 1957 to 1966 to 1988. Her unsuccessful attempt to get Bobby Hoppe arrested in 1966 and her persistent endeavor that continued to 1988 are indicative of a mother’s love regardless of their son’s alleged record and reputation for criminal activity.
Sherry’s criticism of Judge DiRisio and assistant district attorney Tom Evans plus some of her comments based on hearsay comments by third persons need to be addressed in spite of her acknowledged support of Bobby’s innocence under either of the two defenses of “he didn’t do it” or “self-defense.”
Joe DiRisio was one of the highest ranked graduates of Vanderbilt Law School, a former assistant district attorney, law partner of the late mayor of Chattanooga Ralph Kelley and Arvin Reingold. He was knowledgeable, tough but fair, and was always highly ranked in the anonymous lawyers’ polls of the Chattanooga Bar Association.
He quietly controlled his courtroom but was not the totally “pro prosecution” judicial officer described by some of the legal or non-legal spectators at the trial.
His ruling to overrule the motion to dismiss the first-degree murder charge by Bobby Lee Cook and Leroy Phillips on the grounds that the counselor and minister Joseph Godwin did not meet the qualifications under the law to admit Bobby Hoppe’s confession in Auburn the day after the shooting of killing Don Hudson was sound and based on legal principles, not as a “hanging prosecution judge.” DiRisio ruled that Joseph Godwin was not Bobby Hoppe’s preacher at the time of his confession on July 28, 1957, and that the defendant “was not a member or even a faithful attendee of the church where Godwin preached.” It also should be pointed out that the hearing on the “penitent-priest” privilege question under the statute contained in Tennessee Code Annotated §24-1-206 was not held as part of a preliminary hearing in 1988 but would have taken place at a motion to suppress testimony hearing held a couple of weeks before the trial started. A preliminary hearing under existing law was not allowed in a case where the District Attorney General took the case directly to the grand jury to obtain what is known as a “presentment” that normally includes only one or more prosecution witnesses. A preliminary hearing in General Sessions Court usually follows an arrest by a sworn-out warrant and would have taken place several months before a trial by jury would start in Criminal Court. In the Hoppe widow’s book, the term “preliminary hearing” is erroneously substituted for a motion to suppress.
Judge DiRisio’s ruled that the 31-year delay in prosecuting Bobby Hoppe placed the case in an “extraordinary” category and justified a ruling that the State must make a full disclosure of the names and addresses of the witnesses that it intended to call on its behalf.
The ruling was contrary to existing Tennessee law that did not require such identity and production disclosure of any statement prior to a witness testifying on direct examination by the prosecution.
Tom Evans was a tough advocate on the side of the State but does not meet the description attached to him. The depiction of him as a blood seeking prosecutor of Bobby Hoppe does not match the laid-back but thorough trial attorney that I did battle with for several years.
The fact that the wisdom of Cook and Phillips to change their strategy to self-defense which was announced in Bobby Lee’s opening statement of the jury obviously caught Tom Evans by surprise as he candidly admitted in the television documentary by the SEC Alternative Network. Whether this changed his normal demeanor into the personality described in Sherry Hoppe's book is a matter of personal speculation. I would only state that he always “hit hard” but fair blows in my dealings with him over the years.
After the jury reported that they could not reach a decision as to Bobby’s guilt or innocence and were deadlocked 10-2 (actually there is hearsay testimony that one of the two jurors voted for the conviction to support the only pro-prosecution member) and it appeared that Bobby’s 31-year secret ordeal would have to continue with a new trial.
District Attorney General Gary Gerbitz and Tom Evans would later announce on July 25, 1988, that the case would be ended after further consideration.
“Nolle prosequi or nolle pros” is a Latin phrase meaning “will no longer prosecute” that technically amounts to a dismissal of charges by the prosecution. In Tennessee when the State make such a decision it is within its prosecutor’s discretion and judge’s acceptance of that recommendation for a variety of reasons. This was the course of legal action that was followed by Gary Gerbitz and Tom Evans.
Sherry Hoppe’s concern that the murder charges were still alive are technically correct in that the case could again be brought forward at a later date with a new indictment or presentment. However, when the jury is hung up with a vote of 10-2 for acquittal it normally dies a natural death and is over. If a case was deadlocked 10-2 for conviction or with a majority of jurors in favor of the State, the charges might be brought back for another trial. However, both sides had fought vigorously, and it was time to put the Hoppe case to rest.
Judge DiRisio tacitly concurred in the state's decision to end the case to the great disappointment of the Don Hudson family and Bobby’s devoted wife who wanted a complete vindication of her husband.
Her belief in his innocence continues to this day but she ignores the old legal maxim of “letting a sleeping dog lie.” It is not unprecedented in law that two separate 12-member juries might hear the same facts and reach different conclusions.
Whether the capable defense lawyers of Bobby Lee Cook and Leroy Phillips ever fully explained the potential consequences of the above phrase to Sherry Hoppe is inferred in her book that they did and it has to be presumed that they did based on their extensive experience in criminal cases.
Lay persons do not always grasp the fact that a second jury might have interpreted the allowable facts and evidence in a different light than the first jury. While it is unlikely that they would differ in their decision, Bobby Hoppe would remain in jeopardy and run the risk of being convicted and possibly spending the rest of his life in prison after being convicted of first-degree murder with his bond being revoked immediately upon conviction.
Bobby Lee Cook effectively destroyed Joseph Godwin’s credibility with the revelation on cross-examination of his tentative discussion with a national magazine of a possible sale of his story for the sum of $200,000 (present cash value in 2021 of $451,564.89). Godwin died on February 19, 2009, at the age of 88. His obituary described his death as “following a career as a psychologist, professor of psychology and minister."
Whether the television documentary and resulting local and national publicity will result in any further financial gain to anyone does not erase the emotional pain and suffering of Bobby Hoppe, his family, and the Don Hudson family that started on July 20, 1957.
Rest in peace, Bobby Hoppe (and Georgia Hudson).
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Jerry Summers
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Bobby Hoppe