Two days before Judge Gregory S. Matney succumbed to a months-long battle with prostate cancer, he expressed concern about his docket to a friend and colleague.
“Let me know if I’m getting behind,” Jack “Chip” Hurley recalled Matney, 50, saying last Sunday night.
By that point, “medically, there was very little if anything they could do for him,” said Hurley, who after Matney’s death on Tuesday will be the only general district court judge in the 29th Judicial Circuit.
A memorial service is being held for Matney at 10 a.m. today at the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Bluefield, Va.
Matney’s death leaves a void in the community and judicial system, which is hobbling along despite vacancies for a general district and juvenile and domestic relations court judge. The Supreme Court of Virginia last month appointed a retired judge, Suzanne Fulton, to serve as a district court judge in the 29th circuit through December.
Expressing his sorrow at Matney’s passing, state Sen. Philip Puckett, D-Lebanon, said the jurist’s death “puts another burden on the system.
“We’re fortunate to have [Fulton], but with Greg’s passing, that leaves a void again,” said Puckett, who as an area legislator backed Matney’s nomination in the state Senate. “I imagine the court will try to find a full-time substitute.”
Puckett expressed hope that the General Assembly – which failed to fill a vacancy in the 29th last session – would “do something permanent. We desperately need that.”
Hurley, though, said he doesn’t anticipate Matney’s loss will negatively impact the administration of justice in the circuit.
“I don’t think this will create a terrible strain or lag on our docket,” the judge said.
Appointed to the bench in May, Matney’s time as a judge was tragically short, and he fought off his illness tenaciously.
A former police officer, Matney “rarely if ever missed work,” despite showing signs that his illness was progressing, said Hurley, who knew Matney for more than 20 years, and talked to him at least once a week while they were judges.
“One thing that kind of stuck out in his last few months of illness was that he taught all those around him about living,” Hurley said.
When asked how he was doing, Matney would say, “ ‘I’m doing fine,’ or ‘I feel greet. I’m the most blessed man I know,’ ” Hurley recalled.
Dennis Lee, commonwealth’s attorney for Tazewell County, remembered Matney as a lawyer with a sense of humor, and a judge with grit.
Lee was once opposite Matney in a murder trial, he said.
“In something as tense as a murder trial, he’s a real gentleman. And he put on one heck of a defense.”
The cancer showed itself in Matney’s appearance, Lee said, a look he described as “tired.”
“At no time did the litigants or anyone in the court system not have a more than competent judge on the bench,” he said. “A judge who showed real courage.”
dgilbert@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2558
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