Purpose, Impact, & The Stories That Define Us

Thomas “Chip” Barron

Alumni

Class of 1974

Although there are many Mercer moments I could recount, I remember well a trip we took to the Jackson Diagnostic Center prison as part of our Criminal Law class. It came in very handy when I was appointed to criminal cases as a young lawyer. We stayed there, ate there, and even sat in the electric chair. Once, as I was walking down a hall of cells, a boy that I knew from Newnan, my hometown and who was there on a drug conviction, yelled out to me, “Chip Barron, what are you in for?” I told him I was only visiting as part of a criminal law class at Mercer. Leaving there, I better undertood how much freedom meant.