Clients usually hire Johnny Ward when they have a patent infringement or a personal-injury suit — not one that alleges murder. But in the summer of 2004, a family retained Ward for just such a case, which led to an unusual six-year adventure that ended with him signing on as a special prosecutor and winning a March 10 murder conviction.
“It was my first criminal case,” says Ward, a partner in Longview’s Ward & Smith who is the son of U.S. District Judge T. John Ward of Marshall. “And it’s been the most interesting case that I’ve had in my career.”
