On Monday, March 16, inactive senior-status U.S. Fifth Circuit Judge E. Grady Jolly passed away. Judge Jolly had been one of the longest-serving judges on the Fifth Circuit; he was nominated by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed by the Senate to the Court in July 1982. While he took senior status 35 years later, in October 2017, he remained active senior status for eight more years, taking inactive senior status at the end of September 2025 (less than six months ago).
Although typically characterized as a conservative jurist, his jurisprudence was an exercise in even-keeled fidelity to the law, rather than displaying any activist firebrand ideology.
For example, among his notable decisions was his 1985 majority opinion in Aguillard v. Edwards, a constitutional challenge to the Louisiana law entitled “Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science in Public School Instruction.” Judge Jolly wrote, “The statute in essence requires the teaching of creation-science in Louisiana public schools whenever evolution is taught. The district court struck down the law as unconstitutional, holding that there was no legitimate secular purpose for the Act and that the Act would have the effect of promoting religion. We affirm the district court’s judgment. In truth, notwithstanding the supposed complexities of religion-versus-state issues and the lively debates they generate, this particular case is a simple one, subject to a simple disposal: the Act violates the establishment clause of the first amendment because the purpose of the statute is to promote a religious belief.” 765 F.2d 1251, 1253 (5th Cir. 1985).
And in his 2014 majority opinion in Jackson Women’s Health Organization v. Currier, Judge Jolly held, “Given that the Supreme Court long ago determined that the Constitution protects a woman’s right to choose an abortion [ed. note: query the effect of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (U.S. 2022) on this 2014 outcome], the ultimate issue in this appeal is whether the State of Mississippi can impose a regulation that effectively will close its only abortion clinic. The State of Mississippi, however, argues that Mississippi citizens can obtain an abortion in Tennessee, Louisiana, or Alabama without imposing an undue burden upon Mississippi citizens in the exercise of their constitutional rights. Today, we follow the principle announced by the Supreme Court nearly fifty years before the right to an abortion was found in the penumbras of the Constitution and hold that Mississippi may not shift its obligation to respect the established constitutional rights of its citizens to another state. Such a proposal would not only place an undue burden on the exercise of the constitutional right, but would also disregard a state’s obligation under the principle of federalism—applicable to all fifty states—to accept the burden of the non-delegable duty of protecting the established federal constitutional rights of its own citizens.” 760 F.3d 448, 449 (5th Cir. 2014).
And, regardless of the outcome, both of the above decisions are also examples of Judge Jolly’s clarity of writing–a writing style devoid of ornamentation or rhetorical flourish. Also, as a former clerk to another judge on the 5th Circuit in 2000-2001, I can confirm another excellent quality of Judge Jolly’s–his kindness and civility and professionalism with anyone he communicated with, whether in the privacy of chambers or in the midst of oral argument.
After graduating from University of Mississippi law school in 1962, Judge Jolly spent two years as a trial attorney with the National Labor Relations Board in North Carolina, three years as an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Mississippi, and two years as a trial attorney in the tax division of the U.S. Department of Justice, before a little more than a decade in private practice in Jackson, Mississippi, prior to his nomination to the Fifth Circuit by President Reagan.
Judge Jolly’s kindness, civility, and fidelity to the law live on in his many former clerks, and serves as an example to those judges who follow in his path.
Take the Fifth 