It was election night 1996, and Northwest Georgia voters had just pink-slipped McCracken Poston.
After four terms in the state House of Representatives, the Ringgold native had decided to run for what was then Georgia's Ninth District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. A Democrat, he'd lost to incumbent Republican Nathan Deal, who'd won the seat in 1992 as a Democrat, changed parties in 1995 and years later would serve two terms as governor.
"I'd won my (1988) state race with 70%," Poston recalls, "But I didn't win a county (in 1996), not even Catoosa. I was the first Democrat to lose the (congressional) district since Reconstruction.
"It was disheartening," he says. "I was a hermit for a while after that."
Poston recalls that when he left his Ringgold campaign office on that election night, he saw Alvin Ridley nearby. Poston says Ridley, his family's longtime television repairman, seemed to be guarding the building against potential election night shenanigans.
A bit more than a year later, their lives intersected and changed forever. Ridley's wife, Virginia, died Oct. 4, 1997 -- and Alvin Ridley was charged in mid-1998 with her murder.
"I remember thinking, 'Boy, I hope he didn't do it,'" says Poston, who'd returned to his law practice after his 1996 election loss.
Poston recalls that, prior to being charged, Ridley took to meeting him on the same street corner most days. Poston wound up representing Ridley, whose January 1999 acquittal concluded a case that had caught and held the nation's attention.
"That was the case that got me started," says Poston, who'd argued that Virginia Ridley, who was epileptic, died as the result of a seizure.
Since the verdict, almost 25 years ago now, Poston and Ridley have developed a long-lasting friendship. There was an interruption of a few years, Poston says, which Ridley explained later.
"He said he was protecting me from his girlfriend at the time, who didn't like preachers or lawyers," Poston recalls with a smile. He says he and Ridley meet for lunch once or twice a week, and the lawyer makes sure his one-time client, now 81, gets what he needs in terms of health care.
Two years ago, Poston says, one of the jurors in the Ridley case suggested during a podcast interview that Ridley might be autistic. In response, Poston took Ridley to Atlanta for testing.
"The diagnosis, autism spectrum disorder, really explained everything," Poston says. "The way he and Virginia lived, very seldom leaving their home; the flat, emotionless monotone voice when he called 911 after Virginia's seizure; his 'eccentricities,' as those were called at the time.
"Alvin and I talk about the same things every time we're together," Poston says, "but I really enjoy our lunches."
Since the Ridley trial, Poston has gone on to handle multiple high-profile criminal cases, including his defense of Tri-State Crematory operator Brent Marsh, who was indicted by a grand jury in 2003 on 787 felony counts after more than 300 bodies were found on the crematory's property in Noble, Georgia.
Marsh was found guilty and sentenced to 75 years -- the first 12 in prison and the next 63 on probation. This past April, 20 years later, Poston argued unsuccessfully in Walker County Superior Court for early termination of his client's probation, which is scheduled to run 56 more years.
Even with all his success, Poston has stayed in Ringgold. His Nashville Street office is walking distance from Rafael's Pizzeria & Italian restaurant, a favorite of his and Ridley's.
"Ringgold was always where I belonged with my practice," says Poston, who admits that, initially, law school was just a means to an end.
"I was looking into being an FBI agent," he says. "Back then, the FBI was taking accounting majors and law-school graduates.
"My math skills dictated which way I went," he adds. "But once I got into law, I found so many other aspects of it so interesting. So I never seriously considered FBI work."
A graduate of Ringgold High School and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Poston returned to Ringgold after earning his law degree at the University of Georgia. After a short stretch at a local firm and couple of years as an assistant district attorney, he decided to run for the Georgia House of Representatives in 1988.
"I'd developed a love for politics and public policy," he says. "I'd worked in some campaigns, and my mother was a precinct worker."
He won that election -- the first of his career -- in a landslide, but admits to having been uncomfortable when Tom Murphy, then the powerful Georgia House speaker, "made a big show of putting me under his wing."
"Inside of two years, I was rebelling somewhat," he says. "I was really concerned about the money interests, and how legislators seemed to be living high on the hog."
Poston considers the Ethics in Government Act of 1992 his signature achievement as a lawmaker. According to his website, the bill broke new ground in that, for the first time, it "required the registration of lobbyists and reporting of their expenditures in the effort to influence legislators or legislation."
"I loved public service," Poston says. "I really tried to keep constituents first and tried to be good at constituent service. I would love to have stayed in it, but the world changes -- and politics certainly changed."
Poston says that, for the past 26 years, he's answered that calling to public service by serving as a Catoosa County Juvenile Court Judge. Now 63, he says that, when he considers how much longer he wants to practice, he thinks of the late Bobby Lee Cook -- a Summerville, Georgia native who tried more than 300 murder cases and in 2009 was inducted into the Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame.
"He's quite an example," Poston says. "Not only did he stay where he grew up (in Summerville), but he was working right up until he died (in 2021) at 94.
"What the public doesn't know is that 90-something percent of criminal cases don't go to trial," says Poston. "You never want your ego to cause a trial that's not necessary, and I'm proud of lots of cases I've had that didn't go to trial but (resulted in) good outcomes for my clients."
Alvin Ridley and Tri-State Crematory aren't the only clients for whom McCracken Poston has argued in high-profile cases.
Former Murray County (Ga.) Magistrate Bryant Cochran was sentenced to five years in federal prison in 2015 after a jury convicted him of helping plant methamphetamine on the car of Angela Garmley, who'd alleged that she'd refused advances from Cochran while they were both in his office.
"I told her I didn't see that she had a case, given that she wasn't an employee (of Cochran's) and had rejected his advances, but that I would assist her in dealing with issues as a complainant," says Poston. "Before you know it, she was arrested."
Poston adds that when he accompanied Garmley to court for her first appearance, he was "surprised" by a "very nervous young officer" who gave him a "multi-page" report of the arrest.
"His nervousness made me feel that something was up," Poston recalls, "so I announced to the Court that we felt that this was a set-up, that the substance found under her car in a magnetic box was planted."
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation got involved, Poston says, and eventually "two Murray County officers, the chief magistrate judge and the judge's handyman were all federally indicted for civil rights violations, and all were convicted."
The Case of the Jilted Jurist
Alvin Ridley and Tri-State Crematory aren't the only clients for whom McCracken Poston has argued in high-profile cases.
Former Murray County (Ga.) Magistrate Bryant Cochran was sentenced to five years in federal prison in 2015 after a jury convicted him of helping plant methamphetamine on the car of Angela Garmley, who'd alleged that she'd refused advances from Cochran while they were both in his office.
"I told her I didn't see that she had a case, given that she wasn't an employee (of Cochran's) and had rejected his advances, but that I would assist her in dealing with issues as a complainant," says Poston. "Before you know it, she was arrested."
Poston adds that when he accompanied Garmley to court for her first appearance, he was "surprised" by a "very nervous young officer" who gave him a "multi-page" report of the arrest.
"His nervousness made me feel that something was up," Poston recalls, "so I announced to the Court that we felt that this was a set-up, that the substance found under her car in a magnetic box was planted."
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation got involved, Poston says, and eventually "two Murray County officers, the chief magistrate judge and the judge's handyman were all federally indicted for civil rights violations, and all were convicted."
READ MORE
* Five notable trials that reverberated throughout the Chattanooga region
* Chattanooga Bar Association supporting the local legal community for 125 years
* Civil rights figures Reena Evers-Everette, Jerry Mitchell to speak in Chattanooga in September
Photography by Matt Hamilton / McCracken Poston, right, eats lunch with longtime friend Alvin Ridley at Rafaels Pizzeria & Italian Restaurant in Ringgold, Georgia.