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To honor the legacy of Scottsboro Boys judge James Horton, citizens in his hometown of Athens are raising funds to erect a life-size statue on the Limestone County Courthouse lawn. (File Photo)

Eighty-three years ago, Judge James Edwin Horton made a legal decision so unpopular it cost him his career. Now, Horton is celebrated as an early civil rights hero for doing what was right - and what was just - when no one else would.

To honor Horton's legacy, citizens in his hometown of Athens are raising funds to erect a life-size statue on the Limestone County Courthouse lawn. To date, about $40,000 of the $75,000 goal has been raised through private donations being solicited by the Limestone County Bar Association and Limestone Area Community Foundation. Local attorney Harold Hargrave, one of the organizers of the effort, said members of the Bar Association decided it was time Horton received recognition for his role in the Scottsboro Boys case other than the plaque that currently hangs inside the courthouse.

"It was such a high-level case, we thought he should be honored in a more significant way," Hargrove said. "He lived in Limestone County, he worked in Limestone County and he wrote (the Scottsboro Boys) decision in that courthouse."

Donate to the statue fund

You can contribute by visiting the monument's donation page at YouCaring.com, by mailing a check to LACF-Horton Fund, P.O. Box 578, Athens, AL 35612, or by delivering funds to the Limestone County Archives at 102 W. Washington St. in Athens. Click here for more information or call Hargrave at 256-333-1101.

The bronze likeness of Horton will be sculpted by Casey Downing Jr. and erected outside of the historic 1940s courthouse, which is currently undergoing renovation. The courthouse is set to reopen to the public this year.

Judge Horton's legacy

Horton, who was born in Tennessee in 1878 and moved to Limestone County as a child, was chosen to preside over the high-profile retrial of Scottsboro Boy Haywood Patterson being held in neighboring Morgan County in March 1933.

The Limestone County Courthouse in downtown Athens, Ala. is undergoing renovations. It is expected to reopen in summer 2016.

As a circuit judge, Horton presided over cases in Limestone and Morgan counties. He was considered by the prosecution and defense to be a fair and impartial man.

When an all-white jury convicted Patterson, one of nine young black men charged with raping two white women, Horton overturned the verdict, saying the testimony of accuser Victoria Price was not only "uncorroborated, but it also bears on its face indications of improbability and is contradicted by other evidence..."

Horton was ousted from the bench in the next election by voters angry that he sided with a black man, no matter what the evidence showed. Ruby Bates, the second accuser, later recanted her testimony about the rape and people began to believe, as Horton had, that the young men were innocent. In 2013, Gov. Robert Bentley formally pardoned the nine men, eight of whom spent time in prison and whose lives were ruined by the case.