Edited remarks of Chief Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. given at his swearing-in ceremony on June 25, 2010, upon becoming the 11th Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.
I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for being here. This is meant to be not just my swearing-in ceremony, but a celebration of our court as you will see and hear as we progress from here to the reception. Some of you may remember my Investiture 16 years ago so you know that I was raised in Bessemer, Alabama and come from a large family. I have five brothers and four sisters. In recounting that day, I have heard some say that I individually introduced all 100 of my relatives who were present. I must confess that it’s probably true for I am as proud of them as they are of me. Today, for the sake of time, I will not introduce all of them individually. But in addition to my wife Louisa, our sons, Michael and Jon, and my brother Paul, my sister Eunice is here from Alabama with her husband Alexander and their son, Chip, daughter-in law, Cathy, and grandson, Parker. Also here from Alabama is my baby brother Nathan and his wife Carol. My other brothers and sisters and their families are with us in spirit. Also present with me are a number of Cleveland relatives, both on my mother’s side and my father’s side of the family. Louisa’s sister Elizabeth and her family, Lu and Emma, are present, as are her cousin Cathy and her family, Sean and Samantha. I am happy they could all be with me.
Chaka Patterson, Chief Judge Oliver, Paul Oliver, and Judge McHargh
My brother Paul has told you about our growing up in thoroughly-segregated Alabama. He also told you how our father, a steelworker who later became a minister, and our mother, who worked in the home, prepared us for future opportunities they hoped and prayed would be ours; opportunities they never had because of their race. Paul, as are my other brothers and sisters, is modest–it was the way of my father and mother. Growing up in the segregated South of the '50s and early '60s, he was raised by our parents, as the rest of us were, to have more confidence than he appeared to be entitled to based on the then-existing societal conditions. He proved to be a stiff competitor early and determined before I did that he wanted to be a lawyer. Paul was successful in his 10th grade year in a nationwide competition to attend a summer enrichment program at Yale, called Yale Summer High School. He was then recruited by some of the top New England prep schools, including Choate and Westminster Preparatory School in Simsbury, Connecticut. Choate concluded he would need an extra year of high school since he came from a poor, all-black and inferior school of the segregated South. He was having none of that, choosing to attend Westminster, where he finished his last two years of high school while lettering in three sports. Next, he was on to Yale and to Harvard Law School. He has now been an outstanding litigator and an employment lawyer for more than 35 years. I tell his story because I think it demonstrates that when children are taught to believe in themselves, no matter what color, and are provided opportunities, they can excel.
My friendship with Magistrate Ken McHargh goes back to our time at the College of Wooster. Those of you who were at his Investiture heard me describe how he was that rare student who, during the turbulent '60s, could garner the respect of his fellow African-American students, the white students and hold the respect of the administration. He displayed at that time the same steady calmness that he displays as a judge today.
Chaka Patterson was one of my first law clerks. I am proud of him as I am of all of my law clerks. When the next two come on in August, I will have had 22. They have been a very diverse lot–African-American, white American, Asian-American, vegetarian, Christian and Jew, from Cleveland State, Case, OSU, Harvard, Columbia, Georgetown, Duke and Michigan, for example. They have worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, New York and Washington, taught on law school faculties, been associates and partners in large law firms, and served in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Chaka was a partner in a large law firm in Chicago, before becoming Assistant Attorney General for Consumer Affairs in the State of Illinois. The latter post was the one he held before joining Exelon, a natural gas Fortune 100 company where he has now risen to Vice President and Treasurer. What I am most proud of is that my clerks are a racially and ethnically diverse group of people who are good human beings. I have encouraged them to pass it on, because no one can do well without some help along the way. I had my mother, father, sisters and brothers, uncles, aunts, teachers and many others. I had my friend and mentor, Dr. Ted Williams at the College of Wooster, I had Judge William H. Hastie, the first African-American to serve on a federal circuit court and for whom I clerked. I had Fred Coleman, Bill Beyer and Jim Williams, all U.S. Attorneys for whom I worked here in Cleveland. I had Judge Nate Jones, a retired U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge and Judge George White, retired Chief Judge of this court and the first African-American to serve on it.
Chief Judge Oliver is sworn in by Judge Sam Bell on 6/1/10 in advance of the 6/25/10 swear-in and celebration
Now let me go more directly to the business at hand. I am very pleased and honored to serve as the 11th Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. I not only have outstanding colleagues who are committed to the oath they took to do equal right to the poor and the rich, but they are also committed - in the words of Alexander Hamilton - to being guardians of the Constitution. But we cannot do this important work that we are charged with doing without employees of the highest caliber. And, we have such employees here. So, I want our employees to understand that, while we are demanding and will push them to meet the very highest standards, what you do is so important to us and our system of justice. We have, for a lot of years, been a court that has been a national leader in many areas. Many of our judges serve and have served on the Committees of the Judicial Conference of the United States, the policy-making body for the federal judiciary which is chaired by the Chief Justice. Chief Judge Batchelder and I are the current representatives from the Sixth Circuit on the Judicial Conference of the United States. Our court was one of the first courts to develop an Alternate Dispute Resolution Program, volunteering to serve as a national demonstration district under the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990, which require courts to develop mechanisms to reduce cost and delay in the federal judicial system. We were the first, or one of the first, to develop the electronic filing an¬¬d docketing system, and we have been in the forefront in providing electronic courtrooms for easier and more comprehensible presentation of cases. I think you can see some of that technology at use today.
In the criminal area, we are also coming to understand as a court, and I hope society at large comes to this conclusion, that though we have an obligation to punish those who commit crimes, that we must do more to rehabilitate and restore prisoners when they return to society. It is in all of our best interests to do so. So we have, with the help of our staff, designed and begun implementation of several important programs to address these issues. We have developed an Offender Workforce Program, which has several components, including a career resource room, prepare for success classes, an adult literacy program, a GED program in partnership with Cuyahoga Community College, training programs and Employer Outreach Programs. We just recently developed what we call a Reentry Court in Toledo. We have just started a second program in Cleveland this month. We plan to do the same in Akron at a later time. The program works with our most high-risk offenders when they come out of prison and on supervision. It is a team approach involving the court, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Federal Public Defender’s Office and the U.S. Pretrial Services and Probation Office. The Program requires attendance at monthly meetings. At each meeting individual goals are set and progress is measured. If an offender is successful, awards in the form of acknowledgment, support and encouragement is given. If an offender successfully completes the Program, his period of supervised release is reduced.
Project Penalty Awareness is the Northern District of Ohio’s federal drug prevention program. Its purpose is to educate the public about federal drug trafficking offenses and penalties. The target audience includes groups that may be predisposed to engage in drug trafficking offenses, such as juveniles, gang members, drug users, and individuals with prior drug convictions. The Cleveland Municipal School District continues to be the Cleveland Office’s biggest audience with over 50 presentations given last year, mostly to 7th and 8th grade students. The Cleveland Office has also presented at the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Detention Center to incarcerated juveniles ages 12 - 17. In addition, we continue to make presentations at local drug rehabilitation centers. Presenters of this program hail not only from the U.S. Pretrial Services and Probation Office, but also include U.S. Magistrate Judges, U.S. District Judges, chambers staff, U.S. Clerk of Court employees and local attorneys.
So you see I am very excited about what we are already doing and am sure that as a court there will be many more initiatives as we move forward together. As Chief Judge, I am confident that we will continue to thrive as a District with our first priority always being to be a place where justice both appears to be done and is being done.
God bless you all and may God bless America.
Judge Oliver received his B.A. degree from the College of Wooster and his J.D. from New York University. He was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio in May of 1994. Previously, he served as Associate Dean and Professor of Law at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.
He also served as Chief of the Civil Division and Chief of Appellate Litigation in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Cleveland. Judge Oliver clerked for the late William H. Hastie of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He served as Secretary to the Council of the American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, and Co-chair of the Litigation Section’s Minority Trial Lawyer Committee. He is a member of the American Law Institute, the Board of Trustees of the College of Wooster, and the Judicial Conference of the United States.
Oliver received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Wooster and from NYU’s Black, Latino, Asian Pacific American Law Alumni Association. His most recent publication is a chapter on summary judgment in a six-volume treatise entitled, Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts.
