Frederica Massiah-Jackson (born 1951) is a Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas judge. She served as President Judge from November 2000 to January 2006. [1]
Frederica Massiah-Jackson (born 1951) is a Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas judge. She served as President Judge from November 2000 to January 2006. [1]
Massiah-Jackson graduated from the Philadelphia High School for Girls in three years at the age of 16. She also graduated from Chestnut Hill College in three years and the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1974 at the age of 23. [1]
Following law school, she was a law clerk for Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Robert N.C. Nix, Jr. who later became Chief Justice of that court. She joined the Philadelphia firm Blank Rome Comisky & McCauley in 1976 and stayed with the firm until her election to the bench in 1983. [1]
Judge Massiah-Jackson presides over medical malpractice and products liability cases, complex commercial litigation and personal injury matters. She also worked with the Senate of Pennsylvania as Chief Counsel for the Senate Insurance and Business Committee. Judge Massiah-Jackson was a Lecturer at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania from 1992 to 2002, where she taught Legal Studies and Business Law.
On July 31, 1997, President Bill Clinton nominated her to be a judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. She failed to provide timely information to the Committee on the Judiciary. [2] Her nomination was opposed by conservatives (such as editors at National Review and Ann Coulter) and law enforcement agencies, including the Fraternal Order of Police and National Association of Police Organizations. These groups charged that she was biased against whites and law enforcement agents, lacked a judicial temperament, and gave extraordinarily lenient sentences. Her proponents charged that these accusations were mainly fueled by right-wing politics and racism. On March 16, 1998, the day before the scheduled United States Senate vote on her nomination, the nomination was withdrawn. [3]
During her years as President Judge (2001–2006), the First Judicial District administered justice with a $110 million overall budget, 2500 employees and 130 judges. Among many projects, the President Judge Emerita coordinated court employee appreciation events, increased the pay rates for court-appointed counsel fees, signed a Mitigation Protocol for representation in death penalty cases, opened the First Judicial District Information Center, expanded the District's Judicial Education initiatives, and implemented programs to promote race and gender fairness within the District's courtrooms.
In 2011, Philadelphia's Mural Arts program partnered with Universal Companies to include the judge on a mural entitled "The Faces That Shape Us". Judge Massiah-Jackson received the 2010 NAACP's Cecil B. Moore Award. In 2007, the judge's portrait was presented to the courts and has been hung in the Ceremonial Courtroom of the Philadelphia City Hall. In 2006, she was chosen by the Pennsylvania Commission for Women as one of 50 women of color role models profiled in the book Voices. In 2005, she co-hosted Philadelphia's first Urban Courts Conference. She sits on the boards of the Philadelphia Center for Literacy, Scribe Video Center, and Eagleville Hospital in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and is a member of the Forum of Executive Women. She is a member and Past President of the Delaware Valley, Pa. chapter of The LINKS, Incorporated, and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Judge Massiah-Jackson has received numerous awards and recognitions of service.
In November 2020, Judge Massiah-Jackson announced that she would retire from the Court of Common Pleas in January 2021. [4]
The Judge is the mother of Dr. Julia L. Jackson and Thomas H. Jackson, IV.
The First Judicial District is the judicial body governing the county of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It consists of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County and the Philadelphia Municipal Court.
Statewide primary elections for various state offices were held in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on May 15, 2007. Pennsylvania's general elections were then held statewide on November 6, 2007.
Jay Carl Waldman was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and a former federal judicial nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Pennsylvania held statewide municipal elections on November 3, 2009, to fill a number of judicial positions and to allow judicial retention votes. The necessary primary elections were held on May 19, 2009.
Paul Steven Diamond is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and a former federal judicial nominee to be a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He was appointed a federal judge by George W. Bush in 2004.
Amy Joan St. Eve is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She previously served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Alison Julie Nathan is an American lawyer who has served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit since 2022. She served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York from 2011 to 2022. She previously served as associate White House counsel for President Barack Obama.
Robin Stacie Rosenbaum is an American lawyer who has served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit since 2014. She previously was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida from 2012 to 2014.
Cheryl Ann Krause is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Pamela Ann Harris is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Prior to joining the federal bench, she was an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and visiting professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and executive director of its Supreme Court Institute.
John Milton Younge is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania held statewide elections on November 3, 2015, to fill judicial positions, to fill a vacancy in the Pennsylvania State Senate, to allow judicial retention votes, and to fill numerous county, local and municipal offices.
Kelley Brisbon Hodge is an American attorney and who is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. She served as the 25th District Attorney of Philadelphia. After being elected on July 20, 2017, by the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Board of Judges, Hodge was sworn in on July 24, 2017, making her the first African American woman to serve as district attorney in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Chad Francis Kenney Sr. is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He was previously a Judge of the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas.
Candace Rae Jackson-Akiwumi is an American attorney who has served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since July 2021. She was previously a staff attorney at the federal defender program in the Northern District of Illinois from 2010 to 2020 and a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder in Washington, D.C., from 2020 to 2021.
Cindy Kyounga Chung is an American lawyer serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She previously served as United States attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania from 2021 to 2023.
Arianna Julia Freeman is an American lawyer from Pennsylvania who serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Mia Roberts Perez is an American attorney who is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. She previously served as a judge on the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas from 2016 to 2022.
Kai Niambi Scott is an American attorney who is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. She previously served as a judge on the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas from 2015 to 2023.
John W. Herron is a retired American judge who served for 35 years on the Court of Common Pleas of Pennsylvania's First Judicial District, located in Philadelphia. Herron was the trial division's administrative judge for three three-year terms. As administrative judge in 1999, he issued the order creating the Commerce Case Management Program, Pennsylvania's first specialized business court program. He was first elected in 1987, after having been one of the few judges in modern Pennsylvania history to be recommended for office based on a merit selection process.