Frederica Massiah-Jackson
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Frederica Massiah-Jackson is a Philadelphia 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 3 years at the age of 16. She also graduated from Chestnut Hill College in 3 years and the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1974 at the age of 23.[1]
Following law school, she clerked 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]
On July 31, 1997, President Bill Clinton nominated her to become a United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 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 On March 16, 1998, the day before the scheduled Senate vote on her nomination, the nomination was withdrawn.[2]
She has been held up as an example of "Clinton's centrist judicial choices".
