Tyrone Yates

Tyrone Keith Yates(born January 22, 1954) is a Hamilton County Municipal Court Judge. He was elected on November 8, 2011. He was unopposed to fill the unexpired term of Judge Nadine Lovelace Allen who was elected to the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas. His new term runs until January 1, 2014. He was appointed originally by Ohio Governor Ted Strickland on January 26, 2010. The Hamilton County Municipal Court serves approximately 900,000 citizens.

Judge Yates is a former Democratic member of the Ohio House of Representatives, representing the 33rd District from 2003-2010.^[1]

Yates was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and graduated from Withrow High School in 1972. He received a B.A. degree in history from the University of Cincinnati in 1978 and a J.D. from the University of Toledo College of Law^[1]in March, 1981. He has studied in executive programs at Harvard Law School (PIL, 1986) and Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government (May,1997). While at the University of Cincinnati, Yates was elected president of the student body in 1975, served as student representative to the UC Board of Trustees (1975-76) and earned the Jones Prize for Oratorical Excellence in 1978 (Senior Oration Prize). At the University of Toledo College of Law, Yates was a Fornoff Moot Court Semi-Finalist, served on the Jessup International Law Moot Court Team, served as Vice-Chairman of BALSA, was elected to the Governing Board of the law school and the Order of the Barristers. After his first year of law school, he was appointed to a White House Internship in the Summer of 1979 to the staff of President Jimmy Carter.

Yates is a former State of Ohio Assistant Attorney General and former Associate at White, Getgey, and Meyer Co., LPA.

Tyrone K. Yates was selected twice to serve as Vice-Mayor of Cincinnati and served as a Member of Cincinnati City Council from 1990 to 1999. In the 1997 election, he was endorsed by both the Democratic Party of Hamilton County and the Charter Committee of Greater Cincinnati.

While a Trial Counsel in the Juvenile Division of the Hamilton County Public Defender's Office (2000-2003), Yates served as Chairman of Cincinnati's Citizens Committee on Youth (2002).

Yates is a former Treasurer and President of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus and Chairman of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus Foundation. In 2008, Yates served as Chairman of the Local Host Blue Ribbon Committee for the NAACP National Convention. He was Elections Chairman for the Ohio State Conference of the NAACP in 2008.

He is a two time Delegate to the Democratic National Convention (2004 and 2008). In 2008, Yates was a Delegate pledged to United States Senator Barack Obama.

While in the Ohio House of Representatives, Yates served on the Finance and Appropriations, Ways and Means, Civil and Commercial Law, and Criminal Justice Committees. He chaired the Committee on Criminal Justice. He also served on the State Criminal Sentencing Commission. Yates was selected to serve as Chairman of the eight member bi-cameral Correctional Institution Inspections Committee. Yates served on the special legislative committee which was charged with recommending a distinguished Ohioan to be represented among the significant Americans in Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol. He is a former member of the Ohio Arts Council and a former Adjunct Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Cincinnati.

Yates is a former Junior and Senior Warden of St. Andrews Episcopal Church, a Life Member of the American Angus Association, the National Association For The Advancement Of Colored People, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, The Friends of the Harriet Beecher Stowe House, and the Navy League of the United States. He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, UC honorary Sigma Sigma, and The Argus Club of Cincinnati, Incorporated.

He is working on a book on the admission of James H. Meredith to the University of Mississippi during the Kennedy Administration.

Yates received the 2010 Myrl H. Shoemaker Award from the Ohio Democratic Party. In 2009, he received the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections Gold Star Award, the OACAA Don Striker Legislative Bulldog Award and the Oscar B. Griffith Leadership Award from Ohio Urban Resource Systems, Inc. He serves on the Boards of the Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education, Ohio Legislative Black Caucus Foundation, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and SOTENI International,Inc. (an international AIDS prevention foundation working in Kenya). Yates is the 58th annual recipient of the NAACP Theodore M. Berry Award for 2013.

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