DC Court of Appeals
Early on, TN knew unfairness when he saw it. And he vowed – quietly, to himself – to do something about it when he could, as an adult.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
Theodore Newman (TN) grew up in segregated Alabama. His father was a Methodist minister. His mother was a schoolteacher.
CHILDHOOD INTERESTS TOWARD AN ADULT CAREER
As a child, TN had first-hand experience in being prohibited from entering certain stores which were marked “For Whites Only” and for being afraid that the Ku Klux Clan might come to his neighborhood and drag away one of the Black adults, never to be seen alive again.
EDUCATION
After high school, TN earned a Bachelor’s degree in philosophy (the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence) from an Ivy league school. Prominent civil rights leaders to whom he had been introduced by his father, urged him to enroll in the University of Alabama’s law school and become their first Black graduate. Instead, TN accepted a spot at Harvard Law School, from which he graduated with the goal to “return to Tuskegee (Alabama), practice law, and right the wrongs of society.”
CAREER COMMENCES
TN’s first stop on his legal career path was to serve as a military lawyer within the legal branch (“Judge Advocate General”) of the U.S. Air Force, where TN developed a lifelong passion for fine wine and French culture, which broadened his ambitions beyond the small-town South.
Following his Honorable Discharge from military service, TN moved to Washington, D.C., got involved in GOP (Republican) politics and had a brief stint with the U.S. Department of Justice before entering private law practice as an associate with the prestigious Black law firm Houston, Bryant and Gardner. He later was a partner at another Black firm, Pratt, Bowers and Newman before becoming a judge.
CONSIDERING A CAREER PATH OPTION – WHICH TO CHOOSE AND WHY?
Early in his legal career, TN considered a career in politics, musing about a return to Alabama to run for a congressional seat. He said that politics ultimately did not suit his temperament. “I treasure the right to say, ‘Go to Hell, I quit’,” TN told a tv interviewer years later. “In the political arena, one’s right to do that may not be as great. The question became, where can you have the greatest impact in the law. The answer was, on the bench.”
ACCEPTING APPOINTMENT AS A JUDGE – A NEW PATH WITHIN A LEGAL CAREER
Editor’s note – While TN decided against a career in politics, the fact is that for lawyers in the U.S. to become a judge, they must be voluntarily involved in the political process – either by being appointment (typically within the federal courts system) or by election (typically within the state courts system.)
Amusing side note – a friend of the Editor was asked to serve as an informal ‘Moot Court Judge’ while the friend was a third year law student, when the law school provided an opportunity for first year law students to present ‘pretend’ (fictitious) legal arguments to volunteer, student judges, involving ‘pretend’ legal situations; to argue for or against liability on behalf of a ‘pretend’ client; the friend declined the opportunity, declaring (quoting a Biblical lesson): “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” Ironically, the friend was the first graduate of his law school class to accept a nomination from a politician, to seek election to a judgeship. He won the election and served for several decades as a trial court judge, until he retired – to work part-time as a stadium usher during spring training for the baseball season.
There is no written record (evidence) of why TN was asked to consider appointment to the federal bench (as a federal judge). However, it is well known that U.S. Presidents sometimes wish to have judges they appoint, agree with the President’s political party’s main positions while concurrently appearing to reflect / represent a segment of the overall population; thus, a President might want to ensure that among all the judges within a certain court, that together, they represent the known percentages of the ethnic / cultural background of the entire country.
While the public usually never learns the factors for considering a lawyer to be appointed or promoted for election as a judge, in the situation involving TN, it is known that he was a graduate of a prestigious law school so he must have been ‘smart’; also, TN had at least several years’ experience within the military and civilian law. So, he was undoubtedly qualified to serve as a judge.
By the time this career story was written, the President (Nixon) who first appointed TN to the bench was deceased. The President (Ford) who subsequently appointed TN to a court of appeals was also deceased. So, whether TN’s race was a factor in being appointed to the bench, remains officially unknown but this Editor assumes it was a factor among many other qualified judicial candidates.
Trial court judges preside over trials, ruling on admissibility of evidence, deciding what law applies and then either instructing the jury about the applicable law to enable the jury to reach their verdict, or deciding by himself or herself, to serve as both judge and jury when all the parties to the litigation agree to proceed with ‘trial by judge.’ Appellate court judges are not involved in the underlying trials; they consider only legal arguments by lawyers on behalf of the trial court litigants.
Judge TN first served as a trial court judge. He later served as an appeals court judge.
CAREER SATISFACTION
Among his other professional duties, Judge TN was a Past President of the National Center for State Courts and a Past Chairman of the Judicial Council of the National Bar Association, an organization for Black lawyers.
During TN’s years as Chief Judge of the District of Columbia (D.C.) Court of Appeals, Ebony magazine ranked him as one of the 100 most influential African Americans.
Toward the end of his tenure overseeing the D.C. Court of Appeals, he lamented to the magazine that only 9 of almost 600 Black judges in the country sat on the highest state and D.C. courts, adding that it was ‘the highest state courts of the nation that are making so much of the law that affects the day-to-day lives of the poor, Black and otherwise disadvantaged people.”
By serving in each of his respective legal career capacities, first as a military lawyer, next as a civil lawyer doing his professional best to represent his clients, next as a trial court judge and finally as an appeals court judge, always trying to apply the law with fairness and without deference to any person’s politics, race or gender, Judge TN set an honorable example of the best way to meet his personal goal: use the law to have a great impact on people’s lives.
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This career story is based on several sources, including an obituary written by Adam Bernstein, published by The Washington Post newspaper on January 11, 2023, plus internet research.
