IN MEMORIAM
JUDGE STEPHEN S. GOSS
NOVEMBER 16, 1961 – AUGUST 24, 2019
JUDGE OF THE COURT OF APPEALS OF GEORGIA
2018-2019
MEMORIAL PRESENTED TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF GEORGIA
MAY 11, 2020
REMARKS BY
DAN WILLOUGHBY AND MARLAN WILBANKS
Law School Classmates and Friends
Judge-to-be Steve Goss arrived in Athens in the fall of 1981 in his 1977 Pontiac. This was not just any car. This was a fully loaded 1977 Firebird Trans Am, Brentwood Brown with a honeycomb grill, gold rectangular headlights, rally wheels, aluminum hubcaps, and a rear air spoiler. Splayed out across the hood was a four-foot wide gold firebird with flaming wings and an up-turned beak spitting fire. This was the Smokey and the Bandit car in brown with a much, much better sound system. Looking back, that Bandit Trans Am may have been the only flashy thing about Steve. The rest of his life was a testament to humility, service to others, and hard work.
Steve’s Trans Am was early evidence of his stout work ethic. As a part of a deal with his father, a 16-year-old Steve had paid half the car’s purchase price with hourly wages earned working on the family farm in Sale City, Georgia, the fourth biggest city in Mitchell County, population 275. It was no fun spending summer day after summer day in the South Georgia sun baling hay and tending to livestock. But Steve was willing to work long hours to get where he wanted to be.
Steve wanted to be at the University of Georgia. Straight out of high school, Steve went to Valdosta State, but that was just a rest stop. After two years of hard work and stellar grades, Steve was accepted into UGA. With a smile on his face, he got in his Trans Am, turned up the stereo, and headed north to Athens. Steve was not going up there just to finish his undergraduate poly sci degree. He was not going to be a political scientist. Steve was going to Athens to finish his degree so he could go to the University of Georgia School of Law. He wanted to be a Double Dawg lawyer.
Two years later, Steve was right where he wanted to be. He had graduated cum laude, was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi, and had been accepted into UGA’s law school. He had paid his own undergraduate tuition by working in the mailroom at the Richard Russell Research Center during the school year and by working as a peanut scout in Sale City in the summer. Peanut scouts monitor peanut fields for the first sign of bug infestation. After a long, hot summer of sampling peanut plants for spider mites and wireworms, hoppers and loopers, borers and burrowers, Steve was ready to drive back to Athens. But he had one more thing to do. He married his high school sweetheart, Dee Collins. Steve and Dee met when they rode together on the school bus. Dee was younger than Steve, a freshman in high school when Steve was a senior. Theirs was a kind of Mitchell County May-December romance, Steve’s Spencer Tracy to Dee’s Katherine Hepburn. Dee was now at UGA too, having just finished her freshman year. Steve moved her out of Brumby Hall and into Married Housing. They would be married 36 years and raise three wonderful children together.
First year of law school is very demanding, truly a legal boot camp. At the University of Georgia, the 200 students in the first year class are divided into three sections of about 60 or 70 students each. Every class that first year is with your section. The professors changed each class, but your classmates stayed the same. You got to know your section members well, really well. You knew their capabilities and their character, their early morning attention span and their later afternoon motor. Initial impressions of Steve led many in the wrong direction. For a guy with a flashy muscle car, Steve was the most unassuming person you would ever meet, completely without bluster, polite to the point of annoyance. His slow, South Georgia drawl was hot wired to a quick wit and a mighty memory. Steve’s deliberate movements were not indicators of a lack of motivation. Steve was always studying, a serious student, thoroughly prepared for every class. Some of us were in law school to avoid working a real job for a couple of more years. Some were just following in their father’s footsteps. Steve believed being a student at UGA’s law school was a big deal. He was proud of it. He wanted to be there. He had known his career goal for a long, long time. He was willing to work hard to become a lawyer and a judge.
On the very first day of class, a group of guys from our section went to lunch together. We would eat together for three years and remain friends for three decades. We were all from Georgia, but from all over Georgia: Alma, Cornelia, Warner Robins, Cordele, Albany, Rome, Lexington, Atlanta, and Savannah. Not surprisingly, Steve was the only representative from Sale City. He was at the center of our group, our gravitational pull if you are a physicist, our glue if you are a carpenter. At noon, after morning classes, we would usually walk over together to eat lunch at the Mayflower Restaurant on Broad Street. Sometimes we would go to The Grille for a burger. On Fridays, we would always go to Strickland’s for the BBQ goat. We would talk about everything, and we would laugh. Steve had a dry sense of humor and an unforgettable laugh, kind of a cross between a drawl and a chuckle. He could tell a good story, sometimes about Sale City, sometimes about school. Mostly, he talked about Georgia football.
Steve was one of the biggest Georgia football fans ever. He loved his Dawgs. He knew the history, and he knew the players. At the mere mention of a game or player, Steve would spout statistics with the unknown backstories. On cue, he could recite Larry Munson’s radio calls complete with the gravelly voice and the sound effects. (“Get the picture: Dawgs in silver britches. . . .”) He was a Georgia football Google search before the Internet. For so many years, he had followed the Dawgs from South Georgia. Unfortunately, Steve arrived in Athens in 1981, the year after Herschel Walker led UGA to the national championship. But he was there for Herschel’s last two years and for three more years after that. He loved the Dawgs from that era: Meat Cleaver Weaver, Buck Belue, Erk Russell, Fast Freddie Gilbert, Pulpwood Smith, Stone Hands Herman Archie, Elec-Tron Jackson. We were there with Steve in 1984 during second year when Kevin Butler kicked the ball a hundred thousand miles to beat Clemson, and Sanford Stadium was worse than bonkers. We were there with him in 1985 at the Gator Bowl during third year when the Dawgs, led by the three-headed monster, Keith Henderson, Tim Worley, and Lars Tate, upset Florida when Florida was No. 1 and on probation. Steve really enjoyed whipping Florida when they were No. 1 and on probation.
After our graduation in 1986, Steve had season tickets every year. The Gosses used every one of them. On game days, Steve would arrive with his hair cut, mustache trimmed, shoes shined, and dressed in red and black preppie style. He looked like a mannequin in the Stegman bookstore. He enjoyed the tailgating, but he came for the game. His seats were perfect, strategically placed by a wall next to a stadium exit so that no one could stand in front and block his view. He had Munson in his ear and the Dawgs between the hedges. Game days with Dee and their kids, Collins, Clark, and Clint, were special.
But Steve was not a game day Dawg fan. For him, being a Georgia football fan was a year-round proposition. In season and off season, Steve was focused on the all-important high school recruiting scene. Long before the Internet and Twitter, Steve had developed a statewide network of first-class rumormongers – classmates, colleagues, passing acquaintances – who fed him the latest skinny on recruits. (“That big O lineman from Oscilla, 290 and just a baby, is leaning our way.”) On signing day, it was hard for Steve to focus. He repeatedly checked in for the final “sign-on-the-line” commitments, comparing our starred signees to our rivals’. Steve considered any recruit who verbally committed to UGA and later flipped to a lesser school as nothing short of a traitor. He had a hard time comprehending why anyone who could go to the University of Georgia would ever pass up that opportunity.
After signing day, it was on to spring football. Steve loved the G Day game. What could be better than watching Georgia playing Georgia with a stadium full of Dawg fans? I think it was his fellow Dawg fans that made Steve religiously listen to the weekly Georgia football call-in show. He loved to hear calls from those die-hard regular callers, like Paul from Palmetto (“Coach, whatdya think about a little play action on 1st down against them Gators?”) or Waylon from Waycross (“Coach, there’s a punter down here in Cairo for the Syrupmakers y’all need to come on and see”). We often wondered when Steve from Sale City would call in.
In class, Steve was all business, focused on getting the most from each professor. Each of our first year professors taught us important lessons. Two in particular, Donald Wilkes in Criminal Law and Perry Sentell in Torts, made lifelong impressions on Steve. Professor Wilkes taught us Criminal Law from a historical perspective of the evolution of individual rights. He helped us to appreciate the important role that courts play in redressing abuses of power and wrongful imprisonment. That really resonated with Steve. Professor Sentell taught us Torts with a southern fried flavor, where fact patterns were folksy fireside chats and rules of law were bellowing sermons. He sprinkled his Socratic method with stinging sarcasm. Every day, Professor Sentell stood up a single student and grilled them to the brink of incontinence with wave after wave of hypothetical questions. Once when a student answered one of Sentell’s questions with a meek “Yes” Sentell retorted, “Wouldn’t a shorter, better answer be ‘No!’” The only way to survive Sentell was to be prepared, over-prepared really, for every possible eventuality. You could see that kind of preparation in Steve’s career as a lawyer and a judge.
Other than Sentell’s daggers, first semester exams grades would be the first indication of how we were doing academically. We looked forward to receiving those grades with great trepidation. This was long before instant online grade posting. Back then, we learned our grades weeks later, after the Christmas break. We saw our grades the first day back when they were posted on the professor’s door next to our social security numbers. Professor Sentell offered to mail us our grades during the Christmas break if we gave him a self-addressed envelope. While he knew this might ruin his Christmas (“Here’s your piece of coal, Mr. Goss.”), Steve decided to fill out the envelope and turn it in. The next class, Professor Sentell came into the classroom and sarcastically told us that we continued to amaze him. “I asked y’all to address an envelope and you cannot event do that! Where’s Mr. Goss?” Steve raised his hand. Sentell threw up both of his hands and said, “Mr. Goss, this envelope only says ‘Stephen Goss, Sale City, Georgia.’ Now how is this going to get to you without a street number?” We thought his goose was cooked. Very calmly, and without being a bit snarky, Steve said, “My father is the postmaster. I will get it.” In that simple answer, we saw Steve’s character. He was proud of where he came from, proud to tell everyone he was Jake and Valda Goss’ son. He was authentic. He never tried to hide his Sale City drawl. He never could have anyway.
Like undergrad, Steve did very well in law school, graduating with honors. And like undergrad, Steve paid his own law school tuition by working during the school year. Second and third year, he clerked for Jim Hudson in Athens, and he loved it. With his grades, Steve could have gotten a job anywhere – Athens, Atlanta, anywhere. There never was any real question where Steve would end up. Steve was a son of South Georgia and that is where he wanted to live and lawyer. He was making a round trip back home in his Trans Am. He landed his first job at Watson, Spence, Lowe & Chambless in Albany. Steve was ready to work. For the first time, he would have his own office, and he knew exactly how he wanted to decorate it. Steve covered every inch of those walls with Georgia Bulldog memorabilia: framed newspapers with headlines about historic wins, oversized pictures of Uga and his offspring, Jack Davis cartoons commemorating championship seasons, and photographs capturing the best moments in Bulldog history. Everywhere you looked was red and black, and everywhere you looked red and black was winning. This was an office that would make Sonny Seiler proud.
Steve sat behind his desk in satisfaction with the door open, waiting for someone to pass by and get a glimpse of his magnificent walls. He was prepared at the slightest prompting to tell an anecdote about each picture, complete with the Munson call. Unfortunately for Steve, one of his first visitors was the senior partner of the firm, Stuart Watson, who got both his degrees at Emory. Emory does not have a football team. Mr. Watson walked in, mouth agape, and looked at Steve and said, “You know all of our clients are not University of Georgia fans.” Steve was not sure this odious detail was disclosed to him during the recruiting process. Nevertheless, he continued listening. Mr. Watson waved his arms and said, “All of this has to go. Take it all down now.” Steve was surprised, startled really, but he knew what he had to do. He had to follow the law. He took all the pictures down and boxed them up to go home. All except one: his prized picture of Herschel Walker in that glorious national championship season running right over Bill Bates, the safety from Tennessee, like a Mack truck. Steve nailed that picture to the wood on the backside of the kneehole of his desk where only he could see it. Every now and then, Steve would look down there to admire it. It was good to know that Herschel was there for you.
A few were surprised when Steve went on to become a judge. They should not have been. He had climbed the right stair steps, first law school honor graduate, next a private practitioner, then a juvenile court prosecutor, and finally a juvenile court judge. Those of us who knew his personality and his schooling knew Steve would be a good judge. He was an excellent judge. Steve was an attentive, unrushed, read-every-page, find-the-true-rule, rarely-reversed judge, a credit to the bench. What no one predicted was Steve’s rise to become a nationally recognized expert in the treatment of criminal defendants with mental health issues and addiction problems. Twenty years ago, Steve noticed that many of the repeat offenders in his court were suffering from severe psychological and drug-related illnesses. He could have just called them out on strikes and thrown them in jail again. Instead, he established one of the first mental health and substance abuse courts in the country in Albany, Georgia. Working with other community leaders, he devised a system of judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and community supervisors to divert these defendants from jail time to appropriate supervised treatment. With Steve as its innovator and relentless champion, the program succeeded in Albany and was widely replicated across the country. Steve got the word out, teaching judges about this new court as a faculty member at the National Drug Court Institute and at the National Judicial College. Some thought Steve’s efforts were too progressive for an ex-peanut scout from Sale City. Not one bit. Steve was smart enough to see that the system was not working and empathetic enough to know that these troubled people needed special help. He did what had to be done to help them. With the new court thriving in Georgia and beyond, Steve’s hard work and compassion will continue to benefit some of our most vulnerable citizens. Professor Wilkes and Professor Sentell would be proud of their student. His classmates are.
Source: 351 Georgia Court of Appeals Reports, In Memoriam: Judge Stephen S. Goss, pp. XLIII - XLVIII