Elbert P. Tuttle served as John Johnson’s attorney before the U.S. Supreme Court in Johnson v. Zerbst (1938). He served as a federal appeals court judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in 1954, where he presided over many important desegregation cases. He continued to serve as a federal appeals court judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit until his nineties. (The Fifth Circuit was divided into two circuits in the early 1980s). The building housing the Eleventh Circuit is now known as the Elbert P. Tuttle Court of Appeals Building.