The James C. Turk papers deal almost exclusively with his service as judge on the Western District of Virginia Federal Court from 1972-2014. Nothing from his childhood, education, war service or legislative career are documented here. Of the many civic and educational boards on which he served, only his relationship with Washington and Lee University is treated in these papers.

The correspondence series comprises letters from several sources: folders marked "personal correspondence," "general correspondence," and a group of letter boxes. Examining the contents of these files showed great overlap in their contents and, thus, they are to make up a single series. Likewise the subject files series seemed to have been kept in a variety of places, but creating a single series seemed to make most sense. Though speeches, photos, and clippings are each assigned separate series, there is just one folder in each category.

The 15 cubic feet of opinions and orders makes up almost half of the collection. It is unclear at this point as to their research value. Many are unreported, not found in the commercial electronic legal databases, and not shown to be available yet from the National Archives.

Surely the most distinctive series is Judge Turk's correspondence with convicts. Turk was known for his empathy with defendants and his aversion to excessively harsh sentences. That he once sentenced a man to prison and presided at his wedding on the same day - Valentine's Day, at that - suggests the complex connections he made with those appearing before him. These connections are evident throughout this correspondence.

These papers are open to the general public but, as has been suggested above, much more refined processing will be needed to make the information contained here easily accessible. The position in the processing cue assigned this collection may depend upon the number of researchers seeking to use it.

These papers have been processed to the level of series only.