Albert Tate Jr. (September 23, 1920 – March 27, 1986) was a long-serving Louisiana judge known for his leadership of the legal profession. A Democrat, Tate served on the Louisiana First (1954–1960) and Third Circuit (1960–1970) Courts of Appeal, the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans (1979–1986), and the Louisiana Supreme Court (1958; 1970–1979), also in New Orleans.
Tate was born in Opelousas, the seat of St. Landry Parish in south Louisiana to Albert Tate, Sr., and the former Adelaide Therry. He graduated from New York Military Academy in 1937 and then attended Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut from 1937–1938, then Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge from 1938–1939, and George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he obtained his bachelor of arts degree in 1941. He received his LL.B. degree from Yale Law School in 1947; he attended Yale from 1941–1942 and 1946-1947. He also attended LSU Law School from 1947–1948, when he obtained legal certification in Louisiana.
During World War II, Tate was a special agent in the United States Army in the Far East from 1942 to 1945.
He was admitted to the Louisiana bar in 1948 and practiced law in Ville Platte, the seat of Evangeline Parish, from 1948 to 1954, when he became judge of the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal. Thereafter, he was presiding judge of Louisiana's Third Circuit for a decade. He became associate justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court for a brief tenure in 1958 and again for nearly the entire decade of the 1970s.
During his long career, Tate held many judicial committee chairmanships and took an active role in promoting legal and court reforms. He was vice-chairman of the Committee on Court Modernization in 1972-1974 and chairman of the Committee to Implement Standards of Criminal Justice from 1975-1976. He was on the board of editors of Judges Journal from 1972 to 1975. Tate was a member of both the Louisiana Bar Association and the American Judicature Society from 1948-1986. He chaired the Louisiana Judicial Commission from 1968-1970. He was a delegate to the Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1973. He was chairman of the style and drafting section. The constitution which Tate drafted was approved by voters in the spring of 1974. He was also a law school professor at LSU from 1967–1968, while he served on the Third Circuit.
On July 31, 1979, Tate was nominated by President Jimmy Carter to a new seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit created by 92 Stat. 1629. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 4, 1979, and received his commission on October 5, 1979 serving in that court for the last seven years of his life.
On April 23, 1949, Tate married the former Claire Jeanmard. They had five children, Albert Tate, III, Emma Adelaide Tate, George J. Tate, Michael F. Tate, and Charles E. Tate.
Tate was also active in the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Rotary Club, Delta Kappa Epsilon, and the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men's organization. Tate wrote more than sixty legal articles, which were published in a variety of professional journals, as well as a legal textbook and a legal bibliography. He authored nearly fifty other articles on other topics. The Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers presents the "Albert Tate Award" in Tate's honor.
One of Tate's colleagues on the Louisiana Supreme Court, Mack Elwin Barham (1924–2006) wrote the article "A Civilian for Our Times: Justice Albert Tate, Jr." in Louisiana Law Review 47 (May 1987) to honor his colleague's contributions to the law.
Following Tate's death, President Ronald W. Reagan nominated former Republican Governor David C. Treen to fill Tate's vacancy on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Democratic Senate killed Treen's nomination. The seat went instead to a Republican lawyer from New Iberia, John Malcolm Duhé, Jr.
| Legal offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Seat did not exist |
Judge of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (New Orleans) 1979–1986 |
Succeeded by John Malcolm Duhé, Jr. |