Former Arkansas justice Tom Glaze dies at 74

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Former Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Tom Glaze, who fought election fraud as a trial attorney and as a jurist defended the high court's involvement in a landmark school funding case, died Friday. He was 74.

Glaze died Friday morning at his home in North Little Rock. No cause of death was released, but Glaze had suffered from Parkinson's disease, said Karolyn Bond, a spokeswoman for the Administrative Office of the Courts.

Glaze served 21 years on the Arkansas Supreme Court before his retirement in 2008. Before that, he served five years on the Arkansas Court of Appeals and as a Pulaski County chancery judge.

When he announced his retirement, Glaze told The Associated Press that he was ready to spend more time with his family.

"There's things that you consider from your time on the bench. You consider seeing your grandkids and getting older, there are things to do besides sitting on the bench," he said. "It's something that I've really enjoyed and loved, but it's just time now."

He remained active after his retirement, at one point joining a group of retired judges who opposed a state ballot measure banning unmarried couples from becoming foster or adoptive parents. Voters approved the measure - and it was eventually overturned by Glaze's former colleagues on the Arkansas Supreme Court in a unanimous decision.

Glaze sat on the court as it handled high-profile cases, including the long-running Lake View school funding case that challenged whether the state was providing an adequate education for schoolchildren.

Last year, the University of Arkansas Press published Glaze's memoir, "Waiting for the Cemetery Vote," which focused on Glaze's work as a trial attorney battling election fraud. In his memoir, Glaze recounts being hired as a young attorney for the Election Research Council, a project funded by Winthrop Rockefeller to promote election reform in Arkansas.

"The labor of cleaning up elections became more than an employment convenience," Glaze wrote in his book. "It became a mission and, yes, maybe an obsession, which would propel every turn made in a legal career that spanned forty-five years."

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)