The Roanoke Times |File 2003

T. Keister Greer, who argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, died Friday at 86.

Editor's note: This version has been changed to identify the correct position for David Melesco.

T. Keister Greer, a retired Rocky Mount lawyer known for quoting Shakespeare, Tennyson and the Bible in front of juries on behalf of his clients, died early Friday morning near Knoxville, Tenn. He was 86.

Greer's wife, Elizabeth "Ibby" Greer, said the couple were driving back from a trip to Chicago and had stopped at a motel. "He died suddenly, blessedly painlessly," she said. Although Greer worked out at a gym five times a week, "he had a heart condition," his wife said. "It was a valve. We had been watching it."

Martinsville Circuit Court Judge Carter Greer, 52, said his father was "a lawyer's lawyer." While in high school in Alexandria in 1973, Carter Greer said his father invited him to watch him argue a civil case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The younger Greer remembers that his father didn't hesitate in his oratory when Justice William Douglas appeared to lose interest in the argument and leaned back in his chair.

"He had apparently already decided. I can't remember much about that case except that my father lost, but Douglas wrote the dissenting opinion" in favor of Greer's client.

Keister Greer is also survived by his daughter, Taliaferro Greer Alexander of Rocky Mount; three grandchildren; and two sisters, Virginia Greer Williams of Rocky Mount and Patricia Greer Hiller of Michigan.

Keister Greer also has a stepson, lawyer Andrew Taylor Call, Ibby Greer's son by a previous marriage, whom they had been visiting earlier this week in Chicago.

Judge David Melesco, a protege of Keister Greer who serves in the 22nd Judicial Circuit, said "he was probably the smartest lawyer I've ever met."

Greer spent eight years volunteering on the board of visitors at the University of Virginia, Melesco said. "He loved UVa, his family and the Marines," he added.

Greer was a Marine captain in World War II who fought in the crucial 1945 victory over Japanese forces at Okinawa in the Pacific, and was noted for his "coolness under fire."

A graduate of UVa's law school in 1948, Greer was a member of both the Virginia and California bars and handled both civil and criminal cases -- including murder charges.

Born in West Virginia and raised in Franklin County, Greer was a 1939 graduate of Andrew Lewis High School in Salem. He was a member of the Andrew Lewis debating team that won the state's Class A championship in 1938.

Greer left the University of Virginia at the outbreak of World War II and returned to Charlottesville later. He entered a Rocky Mount law practice in 1948 with late attorneys Nathan Hutcherson and Carter Lee -- a well-known county commonwealth's attorney whom Greer would later write about in a book, "The Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935."

The next year, Greer opened a practice in Roanoke. In 1951 he joined the U.S. Department of Justice in Los Angeles, with stints in its antitrust and land divisions.

In 1954 Greer re-entered private practice and returned to Rocky Mount in 1958. For the next 40 years, Greer once said, "I flew back and forth practicing law in both Virginia and California. That's a long time." He added, "I don't recommend it."

Known for his expertise in high-profile water rights cases, Greer claimed to break new ground for lawyers by commuting coast to coast in commercial airliners. "I always insisted on flying first class," he said in a 2006 interview.

Greer maintained a high profile in Republican Party circles, donating thousands of dollars to various campaigns, including George Allen's run for governor in 1993. "I gave him $5,000 I think," Greer recalled, "He wrote me a handwritten note to thank me." Yet Greer was modest about his influence: "I don't really think of myself as an operative."

Over the years, Greer was very visible in civic activities, which included being president of the Franklin County Rotary Club, a senior warden in St. Thomas of Canterbury Anglican Church in Roanoke and chairman of the Franklin County Historical Society.

Greer pursued his interest in history after retiring from law, writing the 916-page book about Franklin County's legendary moonshine trial in 1935. The book was self-published in 2002. It chronicles the trial of what Greer called "the bootlegging elite" of Franklin County, which included Carter Lee, two sheriff's deputies and 31 others. The trial lasted 50 days, the longest in Virginia history, he wrote.

In 2006 Greer donated a 5.5-acre section of the Grove, a former plantation home that also includes Civil War Gen. Jubal Early's law office building, to the town of Rocky Mount to be used as a park. Greer, who bought the property in 1959, made the donation in the name of the late Celeste Greer, the youngest of his children, in 1989. His first wife, Dorothy, also died in 1989. He married Ibby in 1990.

A public visitation will be held at Flora Funeral Service in Rocky Mount on Friday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Services are scheduled at St. Thomas of Canterbury Anglican Church in Roanoke on May 31, followed by internment at the Greer family cemetery in Sontag.