Charles A. Marvin

Marvin was born to Mr. and Mrs. Schuyler L. Marvin in Jonesville in Catahoula Parish in northeastern Louisiana. He studied journalism at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, where he was the outstanding graduate in his field and an editor of the student newspaper, The Tech Talk. He was later involved in fund-raising drives for Louisiana Tech.[2] Marvin then worked for a year as editor of the weekly newspaper the Delhi Dispatch in Delhi in Richland Parish, east of Monroe. After service in the United States Air Force during the Korean War era,[3] Marvin attended Louisiana State University Law Center in Baton Rouge, from which he graduated after three years of study in 1957. In 1989, Louisiana Tech named him a "Distinguished Alumnus".[4] In 1962, Marvin became an original board member, along with another Minden attorney, Luther Moore, and later Caddo Parish Sheriff Don Hathaway, of the Louisiana Tech Foundation.[5] In 1990, the LSU Law Center named Marvin an honorary member of the Order of the Coif and inducted him into its hall of fame.[3][4]

In 1956, Marvin married the former Rebecca Campbell (born September 1935) of Minden and began his practice of law there with the firm Campbell, Campbell and Marvin, later Campbell, Campbell, Marvin, and Johnson. The first "Campbell" in the firm was John T. Campbell (1903-1993), Rebecca's father, who was also a former clerk of the Louisiana State Senate.[6] The second "Campbell", Cecil P. Campbell (1909-1996), was her uncle. During his days as a practicing attorney, Charles Marvin was president of the Minden Chamber of Commerce, a member of the local Selective Service board, and the commander of the Wiley-Pevy American Legion post.[7] He was also affiliated with the veterans organization Forty and Eight.[4]

A Democrat, Marvin strayed from his party in the 1960 presidential election, when he joined his local "Democrats for Nixon" organization. He sought volunteers and financial support for the then vice president's first effort to become U.S. president.[8] Nixon prevailed in Webster Parish in 1960[9] and 1972[10] but not in his initial election as president in 1968.[11]

In 1966, Marvin ran unsuccessfully for the position of Minden and Ward I city judge, having been handily defeated by the incumbent Cecil C. Lowe, thereafter elected in 1976 as a member of the 26th Judicial District Court, which includes Bossier and Webster parishes. Lowe received 2,952 votes to Marvin's 1,530; Marvin carried only one precinct in that race.[12] The city judgeship was subsequently held by John Cecil Campbell, Mrs. Marvin's cousin.

In November 1967, Marvin withdrew from a runoff election for the Webster Parish Democratic Executive Committee, when he finished sixth among ten candidates for five places on the board. He deferred to the fifth-place candidate, B. James Bryan of Springhill in northern Webster Parish.[13]

In November 1971, Marvin was elected to succeed John Bailey Benton, Jr. (1924-2009) of Minden, the interim DA of the 26th Judicial District. The position had opened when Louis H. Padgett, Jr. (1913-1980), resigned to run successfully for the state district court.[14] Benton won in Bossier Parish by fifty-six votes but was overwhelmed by Marvin's majority in Webster Parish.[15] Marvin assumed his on December 13, 1971, with Henry Newton Brown, Jr., later a circuit judge as one of the assistant DAs.[16] He then won the full term in the position in 1972.[14]

In 1973, DA Marvin pursued originally fourteen counts of public bribery against George Nattin, who stepped down as mayor of Bossier City after twelve years in office, and Nattin's son, George Nattin, Jr. Former Mayor Nattin was subsequently acquitted of the charges.[17]

In 1974, Marvin was the DA when rodeo star Jack Favor received a second trial in the 26th Judicial District Court after evidence surfaced that Favor's first murder trial in 1967, when he was prosecuted by DA Padgett, had a rigged outcome. A federal judge granted Favor a new trial on the premise that Judge O. E. Price and DA Padgett had in the first trial illegally conspired to convict Favor.[18] Favor, this time represented by the Bossier City attorney James B. Wells, quickly won acquittal in the second trial.[19]

Not long thereafter, Marvin resigned as DA upon his election to the Louisiana Second Circuit Court of Appeal, based in Shreveport. Marvin defeated a fellow Democrat, Fred W. Jones, Jr., a native of Rayville in Richland Parish and a then district judge in Ruston.[20] In the nine-parish race, Marvin polled 16,106 votes; Jones, 14,521. There was no Republican candidate. Marvin succeeded the retiring Judge H. Welborn Ayres, a native of Natchitoches Parish, who retired at the mandatory age of seventy-five.[21] Jones was subsequently elected to the circuit court in 1980 and became a colleague of Judge Marvin for the next decade.[22]

Thereafter, Marvin was elected to full ten-year terms on the court in 1978 and 1988, both times without opposition. From 1990 until his retirement in 1999, Marvin was the chief judge of the circuit court. He was frequently invited to serve as a pro tempore justice for the Louisiana Supreme Court. He was also a president of the Council of Chief Judges of the United States. He was the author of numerous law review articles and served as an adjunct professor at the LSU Law Center, the historically black Grambling State University, and Bossier Parish Community College. For six terms, he was president of the Webster Parish Bar Association. He was a member of the National Trial Lawyers Association.[23]

Judge Marvin was along with bail bondsman Angelo Roppolo and others one of the founding members of the Shreveport Red Mass Society, which holds an annual service for lawyers, judges, and law enforcement personnel to highlight the connection between faith in God and the rule of law. The Red Mass is held at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in downtown Shreveport.[24]

Judge Marvin was a trustee and Sunday School teacher at the Minden First United Methodist Church. He was also a trustee of the Louisiana Methodist Foundation. He was a member of the Masonic lodge and the Shriners.[4]

There are four Marvin children. Melissa Brown (born 1958) is the wife of Gary Lamar Brown (born 1954), whose parents, Newton and Erlene Nealy Brown, were murdered in their home in Dixie Inn west of Minden on Christmas Eve, 1982, by Jimmy Glass and Jimmy Wingo. The murders occurred only a few months after Melissa and Gary Brown were wed in Minden. The tragic case attracted national attention because of an upswing in executions in Louisiana at the time and a debate over the constitutionality of the death penalty.[25][26] Second daughter Michele Simoneaux and her husband, Rodney J. Simoneaux (both born 1959), reside in Belle Rose in Assumption Parish in south Louisiana. Son John Schuyler Marvin is the husband of the former Jodi Lane Comeaux. The youngest Marvin daughter, Mary Margaret, is the wife of Bruce Johnson. There were twelve grandchildren at the time of the judge's death.[4]

Schuyler Marvin is the current DA of Bossier and Webster parishes, having first been elected in November 2002, some five months before his father's death. He was unopposed for a second six-year term in 2008. The junior Marvin is a Democrat-turned-Republican.[27][28]

Judge Marvin died of cancer[29] at the age of seventy-three. Services were held on April 29, 2003, at First United Methodist Church in Minden. He is interred at Gardens of Memory Cemetery.[4]

In 2015, Marvin was posthumously inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield.[30]