Posted on 04/03/2023
Roger Vinson (February 19, 1940 - April 1, 2023)
Clyde Roger Vinson, 83, of Pensacola, Florida, passed away on Saturday, April 1, 2023 after a valiant battle with cancer. A well-respected, long-serving United States District Court judge, beloved family patriarch and devout Christian, he proudly served his country as a U.S. Naval Aviator and had a passion for growing camellias.
Throughout his 40-year tenure on the bench, Judge Vinson consistently rendered non-ideological, scholarly decisions with meticulous attention to the rule of law, and he presided over many of the Pensacola area’s significant cases. From 1997 to 2004, he was chief judge of the 23-county Northern District of Florida, stretching from Escambia to Alachua. He also served on the highly secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court from 2006 to 2013.
Roger’s remarkable story began from humble origins. He was born on a farm near Cadiz, Kentucky, a small town in the southwestern part of the state. The youngest of five siblings, he was affectionately referred to by family and friends in Cadiz as “Bus” — short for Buster, a nickname bestowed by older brother Jess. He learned the importance of hard work at an early age, helping out on the family farm that raised cattle and sheep and grew tobacco, wheat, corn and soybeans. By age 12, he had learned to drive the family’s 1944 Willys Jeep, soon graduating to tractors, dump trucks and bulldozers. This early aptitude for complex machinery foreshadowed his later skill as a pilot of both military and civilian aircraft.
Roger attended grade school at a one-room schoolhouse with no electricity or running water. A single teacher handled instruction for all ages through eighth grade. He made the best of the sparse educational resources available to him, excelling academically and graduating from Trigg County High School at age 17, having skipped the sixth grade. While in high school, Roger was deeply honored to be elected as president of the Future Farmers of America (FFA) for the entire state of Kentucky, leading an organization of 10,000 teenagers pursuing careers in agriculture.
While Roger’s journey would soon lead him away from Kentucky and life on the farm, he never lost his Kentucky roots. Roger’s formative years were shaped by the tight-knit relationships he had with his many relatives — parents, siblings, nieces and nephews — who would gather regularly around the table to laugh, share stories and sometimes engage in heated, but respectful, debates about current events.
Following graduation, Roger spent a year at the University of Kentucky, sparking his lifelong affection for the Kentucky Wildcats. The next year, he began his naval career as a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, a prestigious honor achieved through a Congressional appointment. While earning a bachelor’s degree in engineering, Roger served prominent roles on multiple school magazine and yearbook staffs and was active in the Academy’s debate team and Christian Association. He was also very proud to have helped produce the first two Naval Academy Foreign Affairs Conferences, an annual event which continues today.
After graduating from the Naval Academy in 1962, Roger entered flight training at Naval Air Station Pensacola, his first visit to the city he would call home for most of his life. After earning his wings as a Naval Aviator in 1963, he was assigned to Patrol Squadron (VP) 5 in Jacksonville, Florida, where he commanded crews flying P-2 Neptune and P-3 Orion aircraft. In 1967, Roger returned to the area as a flight instructor at Whiting Field in Milton, Florida.
Despite being an eminently skilled pilot with a promising future in aviation, Roger’s experience presiding over several courts-martial inspired him to pursue a career in law. In 1968, Roger enrolled at Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville, Tennessee, as a recipient of the prestigious Patrick Wilson Scholarship. He excelled at Vanderbilt, serving on the Law Review while maintaining his commitments to the Naval Reserves out of Memphis, Tennessee.
Upon graduation in 1971, Roger joined the law firm now known as Beggs & Lane, Florida’s oldest law firm, where he practiced general civil law for the next twelve years. Almost immediately into his private practice, Roger emerged as an indispensable, trusted counsel for clients such as Gulf Power. With his keen legal intellect and sharp sense of practical judgment, he became a partner of the firm within four years.
When a judicial vacancy opened in the Northern District of Florida in the early 1980s, Roger quickly emerged as the perfect candidate to fill the seat. Roger’s official notification of his nomination came when he received a personal telephone call from President Ronald Reagan while giving a client presentation at Barnett Bank. Following a speedy confirmation in the Senate, he was sworn into office on Nov. 4, 1983 at the age of 43.
Barely a year after taking the bench, Judge Vinson was assigned the first of many cases garnering national attention, the infamous Christmas Day 1984 abortion clinic bombings. In 1988, Judge Vinson overturned Escambia County’s ban of the controversial film “The Last Temptation of Christ” on First Amendment grounds. In 1994, Judge Vinson presided over the high-profile federal trial of Paul Hill for shooting and killing an abortion provider and his bodyguard outside a Pensacola women’s clinic.
Perhaps his most widely-known ruling, Judge Vinson in 2010 granted a challenge brought by 26 state attorneys general against the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the legislation commonly known as Obamacare. His 78-page decision, which the Wall Street Journal called “an exhaustive and erudite opinion (that) is an important moment for American liberty,” meticulously analyzed the provisions of the act and concluded that the legislation violated the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Moreover, Judge Vinson ruled that the flaws could not be severed, rendering the entire act unconstitutional. After the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Vinson’s ruling, it went before the U.S. Supreme Court. While a majority of justices agreed with Judge Vinson’s Commerce Clause analysis and ruling, the act was ruled constitutional on separate grounds not raised before Vinson.
In 2017, the national spotlight once again converged on Judge Vinson’s courtroom, this time involving a First Amendment challenge to a cross located on public property at Pensacola’s Bayview Park. Despite his own deeply-held Christian beliefs, Vinson ruled that the cross was unconstitutional under applicable case law regarding government endorsement of religion. In 2019, the Supreme Court reversed decades of precedent in a similar challenge, allowing the Bayview cross to remain.
In each of these cases, Judge Vinson put aside his own personal, political and religious biases and applied the law according to his even-handed interpretation of the Constitution, as he had sworn to do upon taking the bench. Vinson made these potentially divisive rulings knowing that they might subject him to disdain from some within his own community — and even his own church.
Judge Vinson’s esteem as a preeminent judicial mind stretched far beyond the Florida Panhandle. In 2006, he was appointed by Chief Justice John Roberts to a seven-year term on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which reviews physical and electronic surveillance applications involving critical threats to national security. Judge Vinson considered his work on the FISA Court among his most significant career achievements. He also served on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Committee for six years and regularly sat on federal appellate courts across the country.
Judge Vinson led a life of service to the Pensacola community throughout his career. While an attorney, he was active in the Junior Chamber of Commerce (Jaycees), being recognized as the Outstanding Jaycee President in Florida for 1974-75 and one of the Jaycees’ Five Outstanding Young Men in Florida in 1976. As a member of the Pensacola Area Chamber of Commerce, he helped launch the organization’s Leadership Pensacola program in 1982. He was a 40-year member of the Rotary Club of Pensacola, serving as its president in 1998-99 and recently achieving the Rotary milestone of Paul Harris Fellow +8.
In 1991, Judge Vinson helped to establish the Pensacola chapter of the American Inns of Court, an organization created by then-Chief Justice Warren Burger in the late 1970s to foster mentoring between experienced members of the legal community and younger attorneys. He was surprised in 2021 when the chapter renamed itself the C. Roger Vinson American Inn of Court. As Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Timothy commented at the time, “Judge Vinson is the epitome of that for which the inn stands and strives to instill in its members.”
Roger proudly served as a trustee of the J. Hugh and Earle W. Fellows Memorial Fund for 48 years and as its chairman for the last 23 years. This private foundation has provided more than $12 million in low-interest loans to West Florida students pursuing careers in medicine, nursing, medical technology or the ministry. Last year, he and the trustees converted the fund to a scholarship program that is expected to provide about $400,000 in grants annually.
While Roger’s legacy undoubtedly centers around his legal career, his strong devotion to family and his faith in God were always of paramount importance in his life. The love between Roger and Ellen, his wife of 45 years, seemed to grow stronger every day. Their different but complementary personalities seemed to bring out the best in each other — she an outgoing type who likes to sing jazz; he a reserved intellectual more at home among the books of his voluminous library. Together they raised five beloved children and now have eleven grandchildren. Roger was a devoted member and Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church for over 50 years and a corporate director of the church for 40 years. He was grateful to witness each of his children get baptized in this church and to see them grow into active members of their communities.
Roger’s mother loved to grow roses at their Kentucky farmhouse, but he found that Florida soil is better suited for camellias. In the 1990s Roger joined the Pensacola Camellia Club, the oldest in the country, and became its president in 2005. A frequent competitor in camellia shows across the Gulf Coast, he would pack two refrigerators to take around 100 blooms to a typical show. In 2009, Roger was elected president of the American Camellia Society (ACS) and helped secure its financial stability during challenging times. In 2021, his name was added to the Tablet of Honor at the ACS headquarters in Fort Valley, Georgia, and a beautiful new red japonica was registered with the name “Judge Roger Vinson.”
Roger and Ellen shared a love of the arts and enjoyed attending Pensacola Symphony Orchestra concerts together. In 1980, they starred together in the Pensacola Little Theatre’s production of “Same Time, Next Year,” receiving rave reviews for their portrayal of the couple played by Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn in the film released two years prior. Roger appeared in several other PLT productions over the years, usually typecast as the judge.
After a distinguished life of honor and courage, Roger saved perhaps his most inspirational act for last. First diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997, he was cancer-free for 22 years. The cancer returned aggressively in 2019, and by spring 2021 his prognosis was poor. Rather than give up, Roger bravely volunteered for clinical trials of promising new cancer treatments. While these experimental treatments ultimately could not save his life, his participation in the trials will help countless future cancer patients.
Even as he transitioned into hospice care, he continued to work. He never complained about his fate; he never questioned his faith. He exhibited unwavering bravery until the very end.
He was predeceased by parents, Carey Thomas and Mallie Guier Vinson; sisters, June Yeates and Lula Wilson; and brothers, Jess Vinson and Tom Vinson. Close together in life, Tom preceded Roger in death by only four days.
Roger is survived by his beloved wife, Ellen; children, Matt Vinson (Brantlee), Cate Merrill, Todd Vinson (Jennifer), Patrick Jennings (Kimberly) and Joe Vinson (Bradley); eleven grandchildren, Kit Ware, Caroline Ware, Margaret Ann Vinson, Tori Vinson, Colin Vinson, Will Vinson, Carey Vinson, Sarah Vinson, Collier Merrill, Madeline Jennings and Althea Vinson; dear sister-in-law, Nell Vinson; and many adored nieces and nephews.
The family is grateful to Val Harmon, Roger’s administrative assistant of 50 years, and Tim Inacio, his law clerk of 17 years, for their extraordinary service. The family also offers special thanks to doctors who pursued cutting-edge prostate cancer treatments to prolong a life some doctors predicted would end two years ago. They include Dr. Tarek Eldawy and Dr. John May of Ascension Sacred Heart in Pensacola, Dr. Oliver Sartor of Tulane Cancer Center in New Orleans and Dr. Trever Jones Nauseef of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. Emerald Coast Hospice also provided excellent care. The family will always be thankful to Ellen’s sister-in-law, Vickie Jennings, and to Nan DeStafney for providing devoted care during Roger’s last days.
Visitation will be held on April 5, 2023 from 5:00-7:00 p.m. at Harper-Morris Memorial Chapel, Pensacola, Florida. The funeral service will be held on April 6, 2023 at 10:30 a.m. at First Baptist Church of Pensacola. The Rev. Dr. Barry Howard, the church’s former senior minister, and the Rev. Dr. Dave Snyder, the current senior minister, will officiate. A private family burial will follow at Barrancas National Cemetery.
Honorary pallbearers will be the Northern District of Florida judges and magistrates.
In lieu of flowers, the family would appreciate contributions to the First Baptist Church Music Ministry, 500 N. Palafox Street, Pensacola, FL 32501; the Prostate Cancer Foundation, attn: Marianne Arieli, 1250 Fourth Street, Suite 300, Santa Monica, CA 90401; Emerald Coast Hospice, 1555 N. Palafox Street, Pensacola, FL 32501; or to the charity of your choice.
Harper-Morris Memorial Chapel
2276 Airport Blvd.
Pensacola, FL 32504
(850) 478-3292
https://www.harpermorrismemorialchapel.com/obituary/roger-vinson