Frank J. Battisti

Infobox Person
name = Frank J. Battisti


caption =
birth_date = birth date|1922|10|4
birth_place = Youngstown, Ohio
death_date = death date and age|1994|10|19|1922|10|4
death_place = Cleveland, Ohio

Frank James Battisti (October 4, 1922 – October 19, 1994) was an American jurist who served as the 21st district judge for the Northern District of Ohio, between 1961 and 1990. He spent 22 of his 31 years on the District Court as chief judge, replacing Judge Girard E. Kalbfleisch on August 4, 1969."The Plain Dealer", Cleveland, Ohio, October 20, 1994.] Judge Battisti's career featured groundbreaking and controversial rulings, notably his finding that the Cleveland public school system was guilty of racial segregation.

Early years

He was born to Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Battisti, in the Hazelton district of Youngstown, Ohio, a steel-production center near the Pennsylvania border.cite news
title = Judge Frank Battisti: Federal jurist dies at age 72
work = The Vindicator
page = 1
date = October 19, 1994] After graduating from Youngstown's East High School, Judge Battisti served as an army combat engineer in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was later commissioned as an officer in military intelligence. Upon his return from Europe, Judge Battisti studied law at Ohio State University and Harvard Law School.

Judge Battisti was a civilian attorney for the Army between 1951 and 1952, taught law at Youngstown State University from 1952 to 1954, and was assistant city law director of Youngstown between 1954 and 1958. He maintained a private practice between 1952 and 1958. Judge Battisti served as a common pleas judge in Ohio's Mahoning County between 1959 and 1961.Ibid.] On September 22, 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed him as a district judge of the Northern District of Ohio. He was, at 39 years of age, the youngest federal judge in the country.

Judicial controversies

On the bench, Judge Battisti earned a reputation as a jurist who was willing to take on the most controversial cases. Some of his rulings generated heated debate, including his acquittal of eight former Ohio National Guardsmen implicated in the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. He is primarily remembered, however, for his historic ruling in "Reed v. Rhodes", which found that the Cleveland school district had violated the law by practicing racial segregation. The 1976 ruling came three years after the filing of a class action in the U.S. District Court.

Judge Battisti's comprehensive order for desegregation featured 14 components, including a provision reassigning students to achieve integration. This component precipitated an outcry among local opponents of "court-ordered busing." While Judge Battisti was praised by supporters for his courage and fortitude, he would find these qualities tested amid criticism that emanated not only from the Cleveland Board of Education, but also from segments of the larger community.

His landmark ruling in the Cleveland desegregation case later prompted fellow Youngstown native Judge Nathaniel R. Jones, of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, to characterize Judge Battisti as "an unlikely hero" of the civil rights movement. Judge Jones said, "He withstood much of the hostility and acrimony, bitterness and ostracism of the community in order to be true to his oath and the Constitution". Even critics of the ruling were disinclined to question Judge Battisti's motives. Colleagues described him as a deeply religious man whose abhorrence of racial injustice was profound and sincere.

Later years and legacy

During his lifetime, Judge Battisti received many honors for his judicial service. In 1972, he was elected president of the United States Sixth District Judges Association; and the following year, he received an honorary doctor of law degree from St. Francis College, in Loretto, Pennsylvania. In 1974, he was honored with a plaque by B'nai B'rith for his commitment to civil rights. The Association of Trial Lawyers of America named him as the country's outstanding trial judge in 1978.

Judge Battisti stepped down as chief judge of the Northern District of Ohio, on January 15, 1990 (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day). His death, on October 19, 1994, was noted in the regional and national media. Judge Battisti's legacy was praised by Daniel McMullen, former director of the Office on School Monitoring and Community Relations, the federal court's watchdog of the Cleveland schools' desegregation effort. "Battisti believed and tood for something much larger than the minutiae of constitutional doctrine", McMullen said. "He possessed the intellect to understand the sweep of history".

Battisti's remains were interred at Cleveland's Calvary Cemetery.

References

Related Links

* [http://speccoll.library.kent.edu/4may70/legalchronology.html Legal Chronology of Kent State Shootings]