By TNHUNTING.COM
TnHunting.Com Staff

KNOXVILLE — Wesley Lee Asbury, a well-known trial judge who was also a conservationist, died at the University of Tennessee Medical Center here Tuesday.

Judge Asbury served as a criminal judge in the Eighth Judicial District from 1974 through 1998. He also tried and defended criminal cases for more than 25 years. After his retirement from the bench, he continued practicing law into his 70s, working alongside son Robert Asbury and daughter Elizabeth Asbury Lawson at their firm in Jacksboro, TN.

As a criminal court judge, Judge Asbury was best known for the appearance before his court of James Earl Ray, the convicted killer of civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Ray appeared in Asbury's court following his 1977 escape from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros.

Judge Asbury served as president of the Campbell Outdoors Recreation Association (CORA). CORA was involved in a number of high-profile conservation causes, including the creation of the 40,000-acre Royal Blue Wildlife Management Area in Campbell and Scott counties, the creation of the 80,000-acre Sundquist WMA in Anderson, Campbell, Morgan and Scott counties, and the TWRA's elk restoration program, which began in 2000 and currently finds a herd of around 250 animals roaming Royal Blue and Sundquist.

At an October 2000 public hearing prior to the TWRC's vote to undertake the project, Judge Asbury touted CORA's success, saying "we never saw a project too big for us to undertake."

Funeral arrangements are incomplete.

Email the author | Discuss it on our forums | More hunting news