Iconic Bibb County judge, former DA Howard Simms retires. Here’s a look at his career

You can feel the tension in Courtroom A of the Bibb County courthouse in downtown Macon most mornings.

Whether it’s just before a Monday calendar call in which swaths of pending criminal cases are called before a judge for evaluation or a trial that’s set to begin, the air is anticipatory – the room buzzes with conversations between attorneys, clients and bystanders.

Since 2010 that tension has been punctured, indeed, utterly disarmed, by four casual words.

“Y’all have a seat.”

That’s what Chief Superior Court Judge Howard Z. Simms said in his deep Southern accent every day as he entered the courtroom for more than a decade, foreshadowing his candid nature before courtroom events even began.

Public servants, private counsel and citizens alike know Simms, who is set to retire at the end of August after working in the Bibb County courthouse for nearly 40 years, as a long-time attorney and judge who is not only straightforward, but also one of the most caring and dedicated employees of the justice system.

Peers ranging from attorneys to fellow judges ruminated on Simms’ influence and memorable moments ahead of his retirement.

Owning the courtroom

Simms, a Macon native who grew up in south Bibb County, began working at the courthouse as a law clerk in 1986 after a brief stint in television news between college and law school at Mercer. His prosecuting skills made an immediate impression.

“I’ve been coming in and out of this building ever since then,” he said.

The 1993 trial of Teresa Fargason, a mother accused of killing her 6-year-old daughter, was one of the more infamous cases in Bibb County’s crime-filled history and inspired incessant public interest. Prosecution of the case fell to Simms when he was still an assistant DA, and the trial quickly became a defining moment in his early career.

“It was the only case I’ve ever seen tried in this courthouse where it got to be so crowded that you had to have a ticket to get in,” Simms said. “[The presiding judge] said ‘if I catch anybody selling them, you’re going to jail.’”

Simms successfully prosecuted Fargason in front of a captivated audience and demonstrated his ability to rattle off precedents at will in the process, an ability that continued to impress peers throughout his career.

“He owned the room when he was in it, as a prosecutor,” said fellow judge David Mincey, who became a Bibb Superior Court judge and Simms’ colleague in 2017.

Though Mincey only worked with Simms as a judge, he’d seen Simms work as a prosecutor while in Crawford County and was blown away.

“He has got an incredible mind and an incredible recall… I’ve not met more than a handful of people in my travels and education that have his recall. It’s amazing, truly,” Mincey said.

Even beyond legal knowledge, his arguments themselves kept impressionable minds engrossed in law.

“I’ll never forget it, I used up all of my absences for all of my classes (in law school) to attend that trial,” said Nancy Malcor, a student at the time who later became Simms’ coworker in the Bibb DA’s office.

Malcor has known Simms for 30 years and, even while at her current job as an assistant DA in Baldwin County, remains friends with him.

“That’s still the greatest trial I’ve ever seen… his closing argument, phenomenal. I still steal pieces of it sometimes, and he still lets me know that he knows when I use it,” she said.

The trial and his dedicated work after it helped Simms get elected to the position of Bibb County District Attorney in 2000, a role Malcor says he “stepped up” to take when nobody else could. She said he continued trying cases even after filling the role, a bit of a rarity for district attorneys, because he simply loved to prosecute.

Even defense counsel respected the always-amicable Simms.

“Through all the cases he tried, he was always respectful,” said Floyd Buford, a longtime defense attorney who has known Simms for roughly 30 years and worked many trials opposite him. “He never let it become personal, and he always was straightforward.”

Learning from mistakes

After roughly a decade in the position, Simms resigned as district attorney and was elected as Superior Court judge in 2010. His work from the bench began a portion of his career that would come to define him.

“It’s given me a deeper appreciation of what people go through,” Simms said of his career, particularly as a judge. “Naturally, when we deal with people, we’re dealing with them at their lowest point… you see a lot of people at rock bottom. Hopefully, you help some of them along the way. You do what you can.”

Simms himself hit one of the lowest points of his career soon after his tenure as a judge began when he was stopped twice for drunk driving in 2012.

“That’s the wonderful thing about addicts, you have to hit them upside the head with a sledgehammer to get them to understand anything, and that was me, too,” Simms said.

His bouts with alcohol came as a result of his personal struggles, which came in large part after then-DA Willis Sparks III shot himself in the head at the courthouse in 1993. Simms, an assistant at the time, found his wounded role model in the bathroom. Sparks died the next day.

“It was around then that I learned that alcohol could ease a world of pain,” Simms said.

The investigation into Simms’ drunk driving did not lead to any arrests, but generated controversy after deputies let Simms go following a traffic stop. Problems with protocol during the traffic stop meant that Simms was not charged with DUI and that deputies were suspended.

Simms’ mistake – and how he adjusted because of it – changed his outlook on the work he was doing. He expressed deep regret for his actions, and took it upon himself to remember them in the courtroom.

“That helped me understand a lot of things… that an addict never wants to admit they’re an addict,” Simms said. “To me it was an important first step in listening to other people and trying to figure out whether they’re being honest with me.”

Simms entered rehab in 2012 immediately following the controversy and, after a year of sobriety and a shift in perspective, took control of the court’s drug rehab program. He dealt with people, many at their aforementioned rock bottom, who were dealing with the same demons.

‘He’s a funny guy’

Simms’ personality contributed greatly to his reputation. His frankness with convicted killers and trial attorneys alike further boosted his notoriety and respect.

“You may be the vilest bitch that I have ever met,” Simms told Amanda Arellano in 2014 after she pleaded guilty to helping her boyfriend sexually assault her children. He told her there was a “special place in hell” for her.

Simms’ penchant for the unabashed did not wane later in his career, either.

“You need to die in a penitentiary,” he told Caesar Crockett moments after he was convicted of triple murder.

A jury convicted Crockett of killing the family of his child’s mother. His case unfolded in May with Simms as steady from the bench as ever.

“I believe, and have now for a long time, that I’m gonna be honest as the day is long about pretty much everything,” Simms said. “People need to hear that what they do has consequences. I think a lot of people nowadays don’t know that, or if they do know it they don’t believe it. They need to hear it and I want them to hear it, and I want them to know it.”

Simms’ uncomplicated language with defendants and convicted criminals may have been sensational and sometimes sarcastic, but it also established a sincerity in the courtroom that many admired.

“He doesn’t sugarcoat, but he’s not unreasonably harsh. Sarcasm can also be a way to deal with (the violent cases),” Mincey said of Simms’ job. “At the end of the day, it’s because that man has the biggest heart and more compassion for who’s in the courtroom than any of us. And that’s a tough thing to replace.”

Simms also did his job in ways beyond the law itself by taking care of the people dealing with issues every day, his peers said.

“I like him as a person, as a judge. I like his commitment,” said Ivory Courts, who has been a bailiff on and off since 2011.

Courts is known for both his kindness and his suave outfits at the courthouse downtown.

After a brief hiatus in 2016, the aptly-named Courts returned to the justice system in 2020 to be a bailiff again – but only if he could be stationed in Simms’ courtroom.

Courts remembered one day when a young girl, no older than high school age, was summoned to court for a check-in about a case she was involved with, though Courts was not certain of the exact charge. After she missed the calendar call, the court put a bench warrant out for her.

Later that day, Courts was in the courtroom when the girl arrived – she had overslept and her parents didn’t wake her up. Courts took the girl to Simms and explained her situation.

“He dropped everything he was doing, took her into his chambers, called the DA and said ‘Look, drop this warrant,’” Courts said. “Then he told her, ‘You go to school and get your education.’ He understands what counts.”

Simms’ humor also made a big impression on those he worked with.

“We’ve told a lot of jokes over the years, both in public and in private chambers,” Buford said. “He is a funny guy.”

One afternoon this year as a murder trial was about to resume, the victims’ families returned to the courtroom after lunch. Courts, looking dapper as ever at his normal post monitoring the courtroom and helping with the trial, drifted towards the families holding one of the courtroom microphones.

“Okay folks, I’m gonna be singing some Luther Vandross now,” Courts quipped into the mic, using his best DJ voice. The family members laughed softly, still looking slightly anxious.

From the judge’s chambers on the other side of the room, Simms’ head appeared, a necktie floating below it as he popped out from his own lunch break for a moment.

“Courts, if you sing,” he said, “you’re going to prison.”

For the first time in the courtroom that day, the family members grinned.

A new beginning

Though Simms does not officially retire until Sep. 1, his last calendar call came at the end of July. By the first week of August he’d more or less moved out, his belongings cleaned out of his office and his pending cases closed.

Flanked by furniture in the hallway and accompanied by the roar of vacuums cleaning office carpets, Judge Mincey strolled into his new chambers. The quarters that once belonged to Judge Philip Raymond III, Simms’ successor as chief judge, became his after Raymond moved into Simms’ office.

“(Simms) only just walked out these doors a few days ago… I can already see (the changes),” Mincey said. “Raymond is an absolutely brilliant person and he’ll take the reins as chief… we’ll be fine, and look forward to looking with a new colleague.”

Raymond, Mincey and the other judges will now have to dole out the serious criminal cases that Simms took the majority of over the past decade. Mincey described the toll that can take on a judge and admired Simms’ ability to tackle the toughest of cases, something other co-workers echoed fervently.

“Keep in mind, he’s had a tremendous judicial load with all these violent crimes he’s had over the years,” defense attorney Buford said. “Every Monday morning he’s hearing about blood and guts… he’s a wonderful guy. We’ve been fortunate to have him.”

Simms led by example, Mincey said, one that other judges will try to follow.

“Some judges… when they get that robe, they forget,” the prosecutor Malcor said. “They forget what it was like to practice and are kind of unreasonable in what their expectations are. Judge Simms was not like that.”

As for the footprint he leaves behind at the corner of Mulberry and Second Street, Simms summed it up succinctly in a way perhaps few could.

“Fair is, at the end of the day, what you really expect from a judge… everybody’s got a story. You can walk by a thousand people in a crowd, and you don’t even think about it,” Simms said. “Sometimes the answer is life in a penitentiary, sometimes the answer is go home and do better. The tightrope you try to walk is the area between there. You try to get it right.”

“Any judge is never gonna get it right all the time. I hope my legacy is that I got it right more than I got it wrong.”