Regret Over Death of Judge J. Lloyd Horton, July 13, 1926

Horton’s Death Causes Regret. . . Passing of Young Lawyer at Raleigh Deeply Regretted

There was genuine regret among the legal fraternity and many of Goldsboro’s citizens in other professions and trades over the death at Raleigh Sunday afternoon of Judge J. Lloyd Horton, after an illness of nine days.

Death came to the former jurist after he had apparently successfully passed the crisis and was on the road to recovery. He had been talking to his physician, Dr. Hubert Haywood Jr., only a moment before he died and was conscious to the last. Dr. Haaywood stated that while Judge Horton had had a severe case of meningitis with a slight kidney complication, death was caused by acute dilation of the heart.

Judge Horton died at an age when most men are just entering public life, but during the 11 years he had been practicing law he had held the offices of county prosecutor, Solicitor of the Fifth Judicial District and Superior Court judge. He was elected to the last-named office at the age of 26 and held the record of being the youngest jurist ever to sit on the North Carolina Superior Court bench.

During the five years Judge Horton sat on the Superior Court bench, he presided over many important cases. Chief among these was the Mahler-Bowman jewelry theft case in Raleigh two years ago in which Bowman, a young clerk of the Mahler Jewelry Store, was charged with purloining valuable gems.

Since leaving the bench 16 months ago to become associated with the law firm of Jones, Jones & Horton, Judge Horton had appeared in many prominent litigations. Among these were the successful prosecution of the case in Federal Court ending in receivership proceedings for the Tri-State Tobacco Growers’ Co0perative Association; the Wyatt case in which Jessie Wyatt, chief of detectives of Raleigh, was charged with the killing of Stephen S. Holt, attorney, of Smithfield, where he mistook the latter for a bootlegger, Judge Horton appearing for Wyatt; the case charging the four Raleigh ice companies with a combination in restraint of trade, in which Judge Horton appeared successfully for the defendants.

Judge Horton is survived by his widow, formerly Miss Sallie Finette Keel, and two children, Joseph Lloyd Horton Jr., 8 years old, and a little girl, Gene Horton, six years. He is also survived by two sisters and a brother, Mrs. Frank Capps of Raleigh, Mrs. Charles S. Rountree of Farmville, and Marvin V Horton, mayor of Farmville.

From the front page of The Goldsboro News, Tuesday morning, July 13, 1926

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