A Judge, Mentor and Friend: Remembering Reuben Green

Born in Oregon, Green spent his childhood between Salem, Oregon and Vinings.

His wife Heidi Green remembered hearing memories from her husband’s childhood in Cobb County.

“He’d tell stories about how he used to ride his bike where Cumberland Mall is today, because they were early to the Vinings community,” Heidi Green said.

After high school, Green served on active duty in the United States Marine Corps. While serving, he received the Good Conduct and National Defense Medals and was meritoriously promoted twice. After four years of active duty, Green was honorably discharged.

While pursuing a bachelor’s in political science at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, he met his wife of 25 years.

The two shared a 30-year partnership, marked by mutual support and amazing adventures, Heidi Green said.

“We were great partners. He was my best friend,” she said. “...We just complemented each other our entire lives.”

At Lewis & Clark, the couple took the same intro to law class, which Heidi Green said sparked her husband’s interest in the law.

“I think he loved the structure of the law. I think he loved the idea of justice and fairness and integrity,” she said. “Those things really mattered to Reuben, and I think he saw that in the law.”

The couple moved to Georgia so that Green could attend Emory University School of Law. After receiving his degree with honors, Green began his law career at King & Spalding in Washington, D.C., and later Atlanta, focusing on employment discrimination, product liability and general civil litigation.

“Then 9/11 happened and he really felt that it was time to go back to serving his country,” Heidi Green said.

Green transitioned from private practice to the DeKalb Solicitor General’s Office, where he worked as a prosecutor.

“He was there for a short time and then an opening came available in the Cobb District Attorney’s Office,” she said. “He loved that.”

While working at the Cobb DA’s office in the 2000s, Green became trial partners and good friends with Erman Tanjuatco in Judge Adele Grubbs’ courtroom.

As an assistant district attorney, Green handled the prosecution of over a thousand felony criminal cases.

Tanjuatco recalled their camaraderie both inside and outside the courtroom, saying his fondest memories were those moments between court.

“We were devoted to our careers, but we weren’t defined by them,” Tanjuatco said. “We weren’t assistant district attorneys when we were out together. We were just guys having a nice dinner, talking about our hobbies, wanting to go do stuff with our families.”

In the courtroom, Green was tough but fair, Tanjuatco said, always seeing the importance of giving people a second chance. Outside, however, he was known to have a playful side.

“He was one of the funniest trial partners I’ve ever had, and I’ve been in prosecution for 30 years,” Tanjuatco said.

Green later served as a special assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Georgia, focusing on dismantling large drug trafficking organizations and violent career criminals. In 2010, he was appointed to the Superior Court bench by Gov. Sonny Perdue and was elected to a full term in 2012, serving until 2020.

As a judge, Green was celebrated for his fairness. Among his most cherished contributions was founding Cobb County’s Veterans Accountability and Treatment Court, Heidi Green said.

Inspired by his own service as a Marine, Green recognized the need for specialized support for veterans facing legal challenges. He spearheaded efforts to establish the court, which has since become a model across the nation.

Cobb’s Veterans Court seeks to divert eligible veteran defendants with substance dependency and/or mental illness who have been charged with criminal offenses, to a specialized criminal court. The court allows veterans to voluntarily participate in a judicially supervised treatment plan.

Retired Marine Sgt. Maj. Ernie Hines served alongside Green as mentor coordinator for Cobb’s Veterans Court since the program’s creation in 2014.

“We worked with individuals to try to get them back into the community and going through counseling, whatever it took to get them back on the straight and narrow,” Hines said.

Over the past 10 years, Hines said a little over 60 veterans have graduated from the program, which typically lasts 18 months to two years.

“He was fair, he was kind, he was strong… and he really committed to the program,” Hines said. “And I just take my hat off to him. He’ll definitely be missed.”

Heidi Green said Veterans Court, held on Fridays, was always the highlight of her husband’s week.

“It’s really hard to be a judge. You sit through horrible… cases and he had a lot of them,” she said. “He loved Veterans Court because it was an opportunity to really rehabilitate somebody who had given their life and time to their country and really support them.”

As a veteran himself, former Cobb Chamber of Commerce CEO David Connell admired Green’s work within the court.

Connell said he got to know Judge Green while serving as Chamber CEO and in the latter part of his career at Georgia Power.

“Establishing our Veterans Court in Cobb County will be a big part of his legacy,” Connell said. “We often ask the question of ourselves and others: ‘Did my life make a positive difference?’ Well, he did and his life of service has made important impacts on the lives of so many.”

Connell said Green was “exactly what we hope, expect, and pray that we find in the courtrooms today.”

Green’s wife agreed, adding, from a professional standpoint, Veterans Court was a large part of his legacy.

“In Veterans Court, he helped save people’s lives. And if he had just saved one person’s life, I’d think that’s an incredible legacy. But he saved many people’s lives,” she said.

Green also loved presiding over adoptions, a reflection of his commitment to family. Together, the couple fostered around 15 children and adopted their daughter Hailey.

Heidi Green remembered standing in church one day when their pastor asked anyone thinking about adoption or who had adopted to stand. After the Green family stood, she said the pastor recognized the judge as the man who oversaw the adoption of the pastor’s child.

“Honestly, we couldn’t leave church for 30 minutes because he had done the adoption for almost every family that had stood up in that room,” Heidi Green said. “In one church to have had so much impact.”

Beyond his professional achievements, Green was a devoted husband and father.

“No matter how busy he was in the day, or I was in the day, if I was here, he brought me a cup of tea to start every day. It was just such a thoughtful thing,” Heidi Green said.

Despite both having busy careers, his wife, who served as chief of staff to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s secretary, said the two always supported each other.

While Heidi Green said Veterans Court was one of her husband’s legacies, she said the other was his two children: Hailey and Colton.

From leaving post-it notes with meaningful quotes on their mirror to impromptu Nerf gun wars, she said, “he was always pouring into them.”

Hailey fondly remembered poolside chats with her father, being taught how to drive and walks on the beach with their dog Mari, describing her father as resilient, courageous and loving.

“Although my dad was very serious, possibly a rather intimidating individual at first sight, to know my dad was to love him,” Hailey said during his funeral service. “My dad was my best friend and my person. He truly was the light of my life.”

During the service, Colton expressed gratitude for the “short but amazing 15 years” he shared with his father, saying, “My dad was the strongest yet most empathetic person in the world.

“When I was younger, I would always eat dessert and other junk. When my dad would say something, I would tell him that I’d rather live a short life enjoying my favorite foods than a long miserable one,” Colton said. “I believe that’s what it was like to have Reuben as a dad. I would rather have the short but amazing 15 years with him than have any other father.”

Green’s family agreed that he knew how to enjoy life.

Outside of the courtroom, he was an avid gardener, hunter and fisher.

“We were always doing fun things, whether it was four wheeling with the kids or he was taking his son mountain biking or taking his daughter to volleyball,” Heidi Green said.

Over the years, she said she also saw her husband’s faith grow.

The Greens were members of First Baptist Church of Marietta before moving to east Cobb and joining Johnson Ferry Baptist Church.

“Reuben was a believer that the Lord just didn’t put us here… He really put us here to take action and be part of the community and to do good and to help people,” Heidi Green said.

She said her husband always “stood in the gap” to help people, from his role in fostering, in mentoring and in Veterans Court.

“He always found ways that he was going to put those Christian values of supporting others, to supporting the least of us to work and he did,” she said.

Even during his cancer treatment, Tanjuatco said Green always put others first, regularly checking in on how people were doing.

“His birthday is at the end of the month. While 54 is not a lot of time in this world, I believe people live a lifetime of being 100 and do a quarter of what he did,” Tanjuatco said.

Green was laid to rest at the Georgia National Cemetery after a service at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church on Jan. 14, where more than 250 attendees filled the sanctuary to honor his life.

His legacy lives on through his family, his pioneering work in Veterans Court and the lives he touched as a judge, mentor and friend.

Green is survived by his wife Heidi Green, daughter Hailey Green, son Colton Green, father David Green, mother Mary Ann Klier, stepfather Todd Klier and siblings Deborah Green, Chris Henington and wife Tassia and David Green, Jr.