TO THE CHAPTER INVISIBLE
The Honorable Theodore R. Newman, Jr. 1934-2023 Judge, Attorney, Law Professor, and U.S. Air Force F ormer Chief Judge of the D.C. Court of Appeals and Chief
“ JUDGE NEWMAN WAS HONORED FOR HIS CIVIL RIGHTS ADVOCACY. THE NATIONAL BAR ASSOCIATION AWARDED HIM THE C. FRANCIS STRATFORD AWARD, ITS HIGHEST HONOR; THE JUDICIAL COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL BAR ASSOCIATION HONORED HIM WITH THE WILLIAM H. HASTIE AWARD. ”
Judge of the D.C. Superior Court, the Honorable The- odore R. Newman, Jr., (Chi 1953), entered the Chapter Invisible on January 6, 2023, at age 888 at Washington, D.C. Hospital Center. Newman was the first Black chief judge of the D.C. Court of Appeals and the first Black jurist nationally to head a state-level court system. A native of Tus- kegee, AL, Judge Newman was born July 5, 1934. He graduated from Brown Uni- versity in 1955 with a B.A. in philosophy and entered Harvard Law School. After earning a J.D. in 1958, Newman served three years in the U.S. Air Force in Laon, France. He later served in the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. In 1962, he entered private law practice, where he was an associate at Houston,
Bryant & Gardner, then Pratt, Bowers, and Newman, where he became a partner. In November 1970, U.S. President Richard M. Nixon appointed Newman as an associate judge of the Supe- rior Court of the District of Columbia, the court of gen- eral trial jurisdiction for the district. He served in that capacity until his appoint- ment by U.S. President Gerald R. Ford in October 1976 as chief judge of the Court of Appeals. Newman joined the Board of Trust- ees at Brown University in
1979, and the following year, Brown University conferred an honorary Doctor of Laws upon him. In 1984, he became an associate judge of the Court of Appeals and held that position until 1991, when he retired and received status as a senior judge. Professor Angela Davis of American University Washington College of Law, who clerked for Judge Newman from 1981 to 1982, she remembers him as “larger than life … brilliant and incredibly knowledgeable about every
aspect of the law.”
“He had the highest standard of excellence and expected his clerks and the lawyers who appeared before him to rise to that standard. Judge Newman’s strong sense of what was right and just, along with his brilliance and courage, made him so effective as a jurist,” Davis says. “The one issue that stands out from Judge Newman’s jurispru- dence for me was his strong belief that prosecutors should be held accountable for misconduct. I don’t
104 THE JOURNAL ♦ SUMMER 2023
Made with FlippingBook. PDF to flipbook with ease