Obituary: Judge Bernard Waugh Crigler

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Retired U.S. Magistrate Judge B. Waugh Crigler died April 26. He was 74.

Judge Crigler graduated from Randolph-Macon Academy in 1966 before going on to earn his undergraduate degree from Washington and Lee University in 1970. He earned his law degree in 1973 from the University of Tennessee College of Law, where he was a member of the Tennessee Law Review and was admitted to the Order of the Coif and the Legal Honor Society Phi Delta Phi.

Following law school, Judge Crigler clerked for Judge Robert Taylor in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

Judge Crigler entered law practice in Culpeper in 1974 as principal of what later became Davies, Crigler, Barrell and Will. As an attorney, Judge Crigler was admitted to practice in Tennessee, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

While practicing law, Judge Crigler was elected president of the Culpeper Bar and chaired the Virginia Bar Association Young Lawyers Criminal Law Committee.

In 1981, Judge Crigler was appointed as U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Western District of Virginia, where he served until his retirement in 2013.

Judge Crigler served on the board of governors of the Virginia State Bar’s litigation and education section and helped found the VSB Professionalism for Law Students Program and served two terms as a member of the U.S. Judicial Conference Criminal Rules Committee. He also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia, teaching trial advocacy and trial evidence for 30 years.

Judge Crigler’s professional honors included receiving the William J. Brennan Jr. Trial Advocacy Award in 2000 and the VSB William Rakes Award for Leadership in Legal Education in 2015.

After retiring from the bench, Judge Crigler joined The McCammon Group as a certified mediator serving Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and Washington, D.C.

Judge Crigler is survived by his children, Kendall, Jason and Stuart; and his grandchildren, Barrett, Spencer, Campbell, Tatum, Fletcher, Pate and Bo.