ATLANTA (AP) Jan. 30, 2005 -- The state's top judge didn't give much thought to open government before joining the Georgia Supreme Court in 1989.

Fifteen years later, Chief Justice Norman Fletcher says among his greatest honors is to receive the Georgia First Amendment Foundation's open government award, especially when it bears the name of his friend and mentor, Charles L. Weltner.

Fletcher, who plans to retire in June, is the recipient of this year's Weltner Freedom of Information Award. Named after the former state Supreme Court justice, the award's past recipients are Gov. Roy Barnes, Attorney General Thurbert Baker and CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan.

The foundation's executive director, Hollie Manheimer, said its board of directors unanimously selected Fletcher because his opinions have consistently supported the public's right to know. Fletcher's interest in the law came at an early age, but it took Weltner's influence to teach him the importance of the constitutional clauses that keep government accountable.

As a teen growing up in Fitzgerald, Ga., Fletcher spent summer afternoons at the Ben Hill County courthouse, watching his neighbor, Solicitor General Harvey Jay, and Mayor Carlyle McDonald face off in criminal trials.

"In those days, we didn't have as many forms of entertainment," Fletcher said. Though his friends found other forms of recreation, Fletcher was taken in by the drama of the criminal courtroom in the late 1940s and early '50s.

After graduating from the University of Georgia law school in 1958, he practiced law in Rome and LaFayette for seven years before being named the city attorney in LaFayette. He later was appointed Walker County attorney and special assistant attorney general for the state. Despite simultaneously holding three government posts during the 1980s, he hadn't yet learned to fully appreciate the importance of open government.

"I was more concerned with my governments not violating the statutes than how important open government was," Fletcher said, remembering how he urged the LaFayette City Council to stop discussing public business at private breakfasts (the Council responded by opening up its City Hall sausage-and-biscuit sessions to the public).

Fletcher's mindset changed after he was appointed to the state's Supreme Court. Fletcher said he at first was skeptical of Weltner because he'd heard the justice had been an ultraliberal congressman from Atlanta. He quickly learned that Weltner was a broad-thinking man of great intellect. His mind was always "in fifth gear when the rest of us were trying to get into second," Fletcher said.

"We became very close friends. I consider him my primary mentor on the court," Fletcher said, removing his glasses and smiling reverently during a recent interview. "He was a great believer in openness in government and the First Amendment. Being a disciple of Weltner, I fell into the same role."

Weltner even took his belief in open government home with him. When Charles Jr.'s middle school congress closed its sessions to the student body, Weltner encouraged his son to challenge the rule. Charles Jr., now an attorney in Plainfield, N.J., received a crash course in the Georgia's Sunshine Laws.

"The Sunshine Law? I thought he was kidding." Charles Jr. said, but after a debate the class voted and open government came to his middle school.  "I am certain I never attended a session," he said jokingly.

Fletcher and Weltner served together for almost three years. While they didn't always concur, they often agreed when it came to open government. Together they ruled in 1990 to open up University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley's income records and in the 1991 Steele v. Honea case decided that elected officials could be recalled for conducting public business in secret.

In the latter case, Fletcher wrote, concurring with Weltner, that if there is "any question whatsoever" whether a meeting should be open to the public, "DO NOT CLOSE."

Charles Weltner Jr. said his father was always fond of Fletcher. The svelte, bow-tied Fletcher once shared a hilarious anecdote with him and his father in the hall of the Judicial Building, and Weltner, who was "shaking and near crying, said, 'Hoo-wee! He is a wonderful person.' Not only were these two friends, they delighted each other."

The justices thought so highly of Weltner, Fletcher said, that before he died of esophageal cancer in 1992 at the age of 64, Chief Justice Harold Clarke stepped aside to make Weltner the court's presiding judge.

Weltner's last opinion was an unorthodox one. In Davis v. City of Macon, the court backed the lower court ruling without issuing an opinion, but Weltner wrote a concurring opinion anyway. The three-page opinion was posthumously published out of respect for the honorary chief justice.

In it, he passed out thanks and accolades, and quoted the state Constitution to emphasize his stance on open government: "Because public men and women are amenable 'at all times' to the people, they must conduct the public's business out in the open."

Despite the numerous awards and recognitions bestowed upon Fletcher, only eight _ most of them for his work on indigent defense _ reside in his office at the Judicial Building in downtown Atlanta.  The Charles L. Weltner Freedom of Information Award will make nine,

Fletcher said. "He made me appreciate the great rights and freedoms we enjoy,"Fletcher said. "I consider it among the greatest honors I've ever received."

Reprinted with permission.  © Associated Press 2005.