[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 57 (Wednesday, April 24, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E533]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           IN MEMORY OF THE HONORABLE JAMES EDWARD SHEFFIELD

                                 ______
                                 

                     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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