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“IN MEMORY OF THE HONORABLE JAMES EDWARD SHEFFIELD” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E533 on April 24, 2013.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
IN MEMORY OF THE HONORABLE JAMES EDWARD SHEFFIELD
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HON. ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT
of virginia
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and remember the Honorable James Edward Sheffield--husband, father, trailblazer, airman, judge, lawyer, law professor, community leader, humanitarian and friend. Judge Sheffield left this world on March 28, 2013, at age 80. He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Patricia Allen Sheffield, two daughters, Joi Elisa Sheffield and Shari Leta Sheffield, both lawyers, and a host of family members and friends.
Born during the Great Depression in Hot Springs, Ark., he was one of nine children of a railroad Pullman porter's family. He worked his way through junior college and three other college-level schools, including the University of Illinois, where he earned a bachelor's degree in political science in 1955. He served 3\1/2\ years in the Air Force and was honorably discharged in 1959.
He was a district executive with the Frederick Douglass District of the Robert E. Lee Council, Boy Scouts of America, in Richmond from 1959 to 1963, responsible for providing the Scouting program to the African-
American community. While also an honor law student at Howard University, he clerked for the chief counsel of the U.S. Commission. on Civil Rights in Washington, D.C. He also clerked for Spottswood Robinson, the first African American judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., and Dean of the Howard Law School.
In 1963, Judge Sheffield earned a law degree from the Howard University Law School. From 1963 to 1965, he worked in U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy's Honor Program at the U.S. Department of Justice, Court of Claims Section, in Washington, D.D. representing the federal government in litigation brought against it. Following his tenure there, he returned to Richmond and set up a law practice. And from September 1964 to late 1966, he was a full-time law professor at the Howard University Law School. Thereafter, he returned to Richmond to resume the practice of law.
In 1974, he became the first African-American Judge in Virginia. He was appointed by then Governor Mills E. Godwin, Jr., to the Richmond Circuit Court to fill an un-expired term created by an appointment from that court to the Virginia Supreme Court. He was subsequently elected by the Virginia General Assembly to a full-term on the Circuit Court and was later elected Chief Judge of the Court by his 7 peers.
Judge Sheffield was a member of the Virginia State Bar and the District of Columbia Bar, and served as President of the Old Dominion Bar Association. He also served as an assistant professor of law at the University of Richmond's T.C. Williams School of Law and as lecturer at the University of Virginia School of Law.
In 1980, President jimmy Carter nominated him for a federal judgeship for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. However, due to the strength of racism still affecting our Senate representatives at that time, he was not confirmed.
In 1984, judge Sheffield resigned from the Circuit Court to return to the practice of law. Shortly thereafter, he became a partner in the law firm of Little, Parsley & Myelitis, PC, in Richmond, and in later years returned to solo practice in the Jackson Ward section of Richmond.
Judge Sheffield was very active in civic affairs in the Richmond community and beyond. A member of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, he was chairman of the church's Board of Trustees and Chairman of its Building Council. He was also on the Board of Directors of Chippenham Hospital and Children's Hospital in Richmond, was a 32nd degree Mason, a member of the Downtown Club of Richmond, the Focus Club, The Guardsmen, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, the N.A.A.C.P., the Richmond First Club, the Richmond Urban League, the Richmond Urban Forum and was the 1982-83 Regional Sire Archon of the Southeast Region of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity
(Alpha Beta Boule). He was also a member of the Board of Visitors of Virginia Commonwealth University and a member of the Board of Trustees for St. Paul's College.
Judge Sheffield was the recipient of numerous honors and awards, some of which include: the Citizenship Award, Astoria Beneficial Club, 1974; Citizenship and Service Award, King Solomon Lodge No. 27, Free and Accepted Masons, 1974; Citizen of the Year Award, Phi Phi Chapter, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, 1975; Model Judiciary Program Participation Award, YMCA, 1977; Citizenship Award, Lynchburg Chapter of the N.A.A.C.P., 1979; John Mercer Langston Outstanding Alumnus Award for 1980, Howard University School of Law Student Bar Association; and the Kenneth David Kaunda Award for Humanism, at the United Nations, from Zambia, 1981. At the request of the Nigerian government, Judge Sheffield delivered a paper to Nigerian judges comparing that nation's constitution to that of the U.S., and was a member of a delegation of constitutional experts and jurists invited to help Nigeria transition from military rule to the rule of law under a constitution.
Judge Sheffield will be missed, not only by family and friends, but also by the many people who benefitted from his legal expertise on the bench, in the private practice of law, as a law professor, and by his good works in the Richmond community and beyond. In accomplishments as well as contributions, he was a giant among us.
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